Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Trust Your Inner Knowing!

 



Unfoldment

Unfoldment is the gentle whisper

          of Infinite God guiding you

It is the silent knowingness of how to act, what to do.

The action comes from the message

          far and deep within,

Only you can recognize it if you are mindful as you go in.

The tendency to direct your own course and make a human choice,

Disregards the essence of unfoldment delivered from the inner voice.

 

The difference from intellectual reasoning and unfolding deep inside, 

Is the security of conditioned thought

not the trust of your inner guide.

I know it may seem difficult to make sense of this at first,

Free your mind of conditioned patterns, allow yourself to thirst.

Open yourself up freely to the meaning of all that you are,

Feel yourself; indulge in the moment’s brilliance,

you will reach far.

 

Do not be afraid of the gloriousness

          that is a part of you -

Allow yourself to experience the present,

          a vision clear and new.

It is trust and patience in the unfolding process here on earth,

Guided through the ethereal heavens planted in your soul at birth.

 

Yes, you can acknowledge the grandness

          of all you truly are,

Believe, have faith, release the doubt,

          reveal YOUR radiant star.


When it is unfolded unto you,

          follow the lead of the Light,

You will be humbly awakened,

          embracing inner peace and

          inner sight.

 

(View from the Mountaintop – Lee Ann Fagan Dzelzkalns)

Touched to the core . . .



I am touched to the core
with a presence I cannot explain
A loving plan enfolds me
Someone is always believing in me
calling me forth, calling me on
I am standing in grace
filled with mystery
touched with the eternal
I cannot get away from goodness
I think we name you God.
You surround me like a gentle breeze
My idols live on in my life
My inconsistent values stay
My immaturity walks besides me
My sin is ever before me
Your love for me stays the same
I tremble in the face of such graciousness
Your reverence for me astounds me
You breathe out hope
and I catch on …

Macrina Wiederkehr
Seasons of Your Heart






Remembering the Vision!!


 


Loving God,

We greet this Fourth of July with grateful hearts as we call to mind the vision of freedom and justice for all upon which our country was built.

We give thanks for those who imagined this vision.

We are grateful to those who continue advocating for and pursuing a land of peace, liberty and equity for all. We realize it is still being created, however, as we witness the divisions, prejudices and injustices that plague us.

May we hold fast to the dream and vision of unity within our country.

May we dedicate ourselves to living as brothers and sisters respectful of one another’s dignity and need for equity.

May we also realize the importance of reverencing our earth which provides for and sustains much of our lives.

We give glory and praise to our God and pray that we may always live in harmony as one family.

Amen.

~Sr. Rita Ostry, ND

Omaha, NE

Gaze upon us, O God!


God of the Great Gaze,
We humans prefer satisfying un-truth
to the Truth that is usually unsatisfying.
Truth is always too big for us,
And we are so small and afraid.
So you send us prophets and truth speakers
to open our eyes and ears to your Big Picture.
Show us how to hear them, how to support them,
and how to interpret their wisdom.
Help us to trust that your prophetic voice
may also be communicated through our words and actions.       

May we practice a spirit of discernment
and a stance of humility,
so that your Truth be spoken, not our own.
We ask this in the name of Jesus the Prophet,
for we desire to share in your Great Gaze, Amen. (Author Unknown)





Friday, June 20, 2025

Summer Blessing!

 




May the God of Summer be with you, enveloping you with the warmth of love, filling your heart with the brilliance of light, refreshing you and cooling you in the living water of God's grace. In the shade of God's guiding, protective presence, may your deepened experience of this presence draw others to God's warm, refreshing love. May the blessing of Summer be with you.

--Maxine Shonk, OP



Welcome, Summer! . . .

 


Great Spirit Prayer

Oh, Great Spirit,
Whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me! I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes
ever hold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.

Help me remain calm and strong in the
face of all that comes towards me.
Help me find compassion without
empathy overwhelming me.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy: myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you without shame.

- Translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887






Monday, June 16, 2025

June 22, 2025: Marianne Duddy-Burke Preaches for the Solemnity of the Bo...

June 22 Corpus Christi . . .

 

Liturgy
Irene Zimmerman SSSF

All the way to Elizabeth
and in the months afterward
she wove him, pondering,
"this is my body, my blood!

"Beneath the watching eyes
of donkey, ox, and sheep
she rocked him crooning
"this is my body, my blood!"

In the search for her young lost boy
and the foreboding day of his leaving
she let him go , knowing
"This is my body, my blood!"

Under the blood smeared cross
she rocked his mangled bones,
re-membering him, moaning,
"This is my body, my blood!"

When darkness, stones , and tomb
bloomed to Easter morning,
She ran to him shouting,
"this is my body, my blood!"

And no one thought to tell her:
"Woman, it is not fitting
for you to say those words.
You don't resemble him."

A Celebration of God's Love!

 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/062725.cfm


Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus


The story is told that once a young boy was about to have open-heart surgery.  To prepare him the surgeon said, “Tomorrow I will look at your heart.”  Smiling, the boy interrupted, “You’ll find Jesus there.”  Ignoring his remark, the surgeon continued, “After I have seen your heart I will try to repair the damage.”  Again, the boy insisted.  “You are going to find Jesus in my heart.”

The surgeon who had suffered losses in his own family and was still in pain from a failed marriage, felt very distant from God. He replied in a chilling tone, “No, what I’ll find is damaged tissue, constricted arteries, and weakened muscle.”

The next day he opened the boy’s chest and exposed his heart.  It was worse than he expected – a ravaged aorta, torn tissue, swollen muscles and arteries.  There was no hope of a cure, not even the possibility of a transplant.  His icy anger at God began to surface as he thought, “Where is God? Why did God do this?  Why is God letting this boy suffer and cursing him with an early death?”

As he gazed at the boy’s heart, he suddenly thought of the pierced heart of Jesus, and it seemed to him that the boy and Jesus shared one heart, a heart that was suffering for all those in the world experiencing pain and loss; a heart that was redeeming the world by love. 

Struck with awe at such goodness, such redemptive, unconditional love, tears began rolling down the surgeon’s cheeks, hot tears of compassion for the little boy.  Later, when the child awoke, he whispered, “Did you see my heart?”  “Yes,” said the surgeon.  “What did you find?” the boy asked. The surgeon replied, “I found Jesus there.” (Source Unknown)

The heart can be understood as a physical part of each of us – that hidden yet vital organ that circulates the full human blood supply three times per minute and whose hundred thousand beats a day are often taken for granted.  The heart is the very core of a person.  When that very center is deeply affected, one’s whole way of thinking about the world, one’s whole way of feeling it, of being in it is profoundly altered.  As in our opening story, the doctor experienced a conversion of heart – a healing from heartlessness to heart-fullness. And the child – who was all heart and shared in the heart of Jesus – had a heart filled with redemptive and unconditional love.

Today’s feast is the celebration of the “enlarged heart” of God as it was enfleshed in the heart of Jesus through the womb of Mary – a heart filled and overflowing with unconditional love and mercy.  Today is not necessarily a feast of our devotion to the heart of Jesus, but it is a celebration of God’s devotion to us by offering us a heart of love beyond our comprehension, a heart of love beyond any Hallmark card expression, and a heart full of love that is unfathomable. Our God’s love is tender; Our God is totally in love with us, and desires to be of one heart with us.  For as John writes: God is Love!

As we celebrate this feast today of God’s love for us it was different in the Middle Ages – as the devotion was not to the heart of Jesus but to the wound in the side of Jesus.  In later times, especially rising from the visions of St. Margaret Mary, the focus shifted more to the Heart of Jesus.

In the writings of Margaret Mary, she describes what happened one day as she was praying when she received a vision of Jesus:   “For a long time he kept me leaning on his breast, while he revealed the wonders of his love and the mysterious secrets of his Sacred Heart. Till then, he had always kept them hidden; but now, for the first time, he opened his Heart to me.”

Margaret Mary continued to describe in her writings how Jesus revealed his heart as a heart on fire with love as he said: “My divine Heart is so passionately fond of the human race, and of you (Margaret Mary), that it cannot keep back the pent-up flames of its burning love any longer.”  She then reveals what followed. “Next, he asked for my heart. I begged him to take it; he did, and placed it in his own divine Heart.  He let me see it there – a tiny atom being completely burned up in that fiery furnace.  Then, lifting it out – now a little heart-shaped flame – he put it back where he had found it.”

In Scripture we find a number of examples of how Jesus’ love was lived out. . .
• Let the children come to me . . .then he embraced them and blessed them, placing his hands on them
• At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them.
• Moved with pity, Jesus touched their eyes and immediately they received their sight.
• (Rich man) Jesus looking at him loved him.


So what is the good news for us today?
Let us through our daily reflection imagine ourselves resting in the heart of God hearing the heartbeat of God in the intimacy of our own prayer. 


(Nouwen)- “when we come to hear the heartbeat of God in the intimacy of our prayer, we realize that God’s heart embraces all the sufferings of the world.  We come to see that through Jesus Christ these burdens have become a light burden which we are invited to carry.  . . It is in the heart of God that we come to understand the true nature of human suffering and come to know our mission to alleviate this suffering not in our own name, but in the name of Jesus.”

For God’s heart goes out to us and God’s love is always there for us –



Chaos to calming . . .

 


This is the Blessing in the Chaos

To all that is chaotic in you, let there come silence.
Let there be a calming of the clamoring,
a stilling of the voices that have laid their claim on you,
that have made their home in you,
that go with you even to the holy places but will not let you rest,
will not let you hear your life with wholeness
or feel the grace that fashioned you.
Let what distracts you cease.
Let what divides you cease.
Let there come an end to what diminishes and demeans, 
and let depart all that keeps you in its cage.
Let there be an opening into the quiet that lies beneath the chaos, 
where you find the peace you did not think possible
and see what shimmers within the storm.

Author: Jan Richardson

A Cure for Sorrow

https://www.janrichardson.com/books


Thursday, June 12, 2025

Trinity: The Living God of Love

 




Dawn M. Nothwehr, OSF, Ph.D. The Erica and Harry John Family Professor Emerita of Catholic Theological Ethics

Readings:
Proverbs 8:22-31

Romans 5:1-5

John 16:12-15

 Trinity: The Living God of Love

That God is The Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a central claim of Christian faith. This assertion is difficult to put into everyday language!  Fully knowing God is beyond human comprehension. God is a mystery to people. Yet, being a Christian requires that we live in community with others, and doing that with an understanding of who God is, and what God requires of us.

Today’s scripture readings each illustrate key experiences of God, as Trinity. Proverbs images divine Wisdom as a Woman. St. Paul focuses on God’s work of salvation, emphasizing God’s love experienced in Christ’s glorification, and the Spirit’s continuing presence. Jesus describes how the Spirit’s presence continues to reveal the Father in Jesus’ absence.

“Trinity” cannot be explained, if understand literally. That was never the intent of trinitarian belief. God is ultimately a Mystery. We can only speak of Trinity in a descriptive sense. Indeed, “the Trinity” is a way of describing what we know about God. Christians speak from our experience of God, while knowing that God is beyond our reason. Experientially, we do know and can speak about God as Trinity.

First, to understand the impact of naming God as Trinity, we must link our experience of God with that of the first Christians. This text, 2 Cor.13:13, dates back to about 55-56 CE, and shows what first Christians understood from their experience: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with all of you.”

Trinitarian speech about God arose in the Christian community because people encountered God’s saving graciousness through Jesus Christ in the power of the Spirit. The specific encounter that spurred that development was encountering Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and risen presence in the Spirit was made tangible, through God’s gracious mercy, poured out in daily life, amid sin and suffering. In order for Christians to describe and witness to others about God, they tried to codify language that best described their experiences.

However, the First Century Christians were Jewish monotheists, people who believed in One God. As theologian, Elizabeth A. Johnson explains: “The utterly transcendent God of Israel – Creator and Redeemer had drawn utterly near to them in Jesus, and had become amazingly enfleshed and was with them still in the Spirit, who inspired the gifts in their community.”  They experienced the saving God in a three-fold way: Beyond them, with them, and within them. In personally knowing Jesus, God was utterly transcendent, as present historically in the person of Jesus, and as present in the spirit of their community. The early Christians experienced this as moments of encounter with the One God, and so they began to talk about the One God in that three-fold pattern (Cor. 13:13).

Over the centuries Christians tried to explain an unexplainable experience in philosophical terms: 4th C. – Egyptian priest Arius; 325 CE – Council of Nicaea; 381 CE – Council of Constantinople. Those models often obscured the initial and ongoing faith experience of the Faithful. Scripture scholar, Sandra Schneiders mused, “God is not two men and a bird!”  Nor, according to theologian Catherine Mowry LaCugnais it orthodox to name the Trinity in exclusively masculine terms, because God is a Spirit.

Again, the intent of the Trinitarian symbol is to acclaim the God who saves and to lead us into this mystery of Love. This is rooted in: the Experience of Salvation: God is Creator, Source of all; God enfleshed in Jesus Christ-Word, Wisdom, Son; Holy Spirit God is gifting presence, love, drawing all thing into the future.

To name an incomprehensible Mystery can be done only by analogy. As St. Augustine wrote:

But you still ask, “three what?” Now the poverty from which our language suffers becomes apparent. But the formula of “three persons” was coined not in order to give a complete explanation by means of it, but in order that we might not be obliged to stay silent. On the Trinity, 5.10

Elizabeth A. Johnson summarizes: “The numbers one and three do not refer to numbers in the usual sense….To say the God is ONE is to negate division, thus affirming the unity of the Divine Being; there is only ONE God. To say the “persons” are THREE is to negate solitariness, thus affirming the divine being dwells in living communion.  The holy Mystery of God is not a single monolith with a rigid nature, an undifferentiated whole, but a living fecundity of relational life that overflows to the world. Most basically, the numbers point to the livingness of God.” How do you experience and name God?

Dawn M. Nothwehr, OSF, Ph.D.
The Erica and Harry John Family Professor Emerita
of Catholic Theological Ethics

 

 


God, hear our prayer!


 




God of No-sides Prayer!

God of our side, and God of our enemies’ side,
hear our prayer:
we need your help here on planet earth.
With heavy hearts we confess
the brokenness of our beautiful blue planet
which is spinning out of control.


Hear the sound of gunfire,
see the bomb craters,
taste the bitterness of people hating people,
smell the fear that permeates our lives,
touch the hearts of the wounded.


Hear the sound of children being hurt,
see people running away from their homes,
taste the hopelessness of shattered communities,
smell the despair of refugee camps,
touch the inconsolable on both sides.


Feel our pain as we spin through space.
Touch the pulse of the earth as it beats wildly.
God of our side, and God of our enemies’ side,
you are the God of no sides at all.


You call us to a new place,
to step with faith outside this world of taking sides.
You lead us to an inside out world,
an upside down kingdom,
where our enemy is our brother,
where our foe can be our  fondest friend.


You call us from the sidelines,
to centre stage,
to be a community of global resurrection,
firm believers in love that cannot die,
love that cannot be killed,
love that never lets us go.


You call us to be firm believers
in the one who crossed heaven and earth
to show us that even between God and human beings
there are no sides.


It is in the name of Jesus Christ,
whose arms embrace us all,
that we pray for peace today.
Amen.


Carol Penner - A Mennonite Voice



Litany of Lamentation

 

God of hope; God of mercy . . .hear our prayer!





For those who are suffering.
For those who are injured.
For families that are separated.

For firemen, police, emergency medical workers and all public officials.
For those who serve in the armed forces.
For those who answer the call to comfort and give aid.
For those who provide support thru their prayers.

For those who are dying.
For those who died while saving the lives of others.
For those who have died from acts of terrorism [or natural disasters] around the world.
For all who lost their lives.

For those who survived.
For the children who have been orphaned.
For the men and women who have lost their spouses.
For all who mourn and those who comfort them.

For peace in our city and in our world.
For unity among faiths.
For a greater appreciation and love of all humanity.

For patience and perseverance.
For calm in the midst of fear.
For forgiveness and the grace to overcome adversity.

For generosity of spirit.
For hope in times of despair.
For light in the darkness.

Gracious and Loving God,
you are our comforter and our hope.
Hear your people's prayers as they come before you.
Strengthen us in this time of need.

Inspire us to acts of charity and generosity
and give us hope of a brighter future.
We ask this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
- Joseph P. Shadle

________________________________________

A Dad's Day Reflection

 




A Box Full of Kisses!
The story goes that some time ago, a man punished his 3-year old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper.  Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree. Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, “This is for you, Daddy.”

The man was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found out the box was empty. He yelled at her, stating, “Don’t you know when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside?” The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and cried, “Oh, Daddy, it’s not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They’re all for you, Daddy.”

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged her forgiveness.

Only a short time later, an accident took the life of the child. It is also told that her father kept the gold wrapped box by his bed for many years and, whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

(Author’s comment):
In a very real sense, each one of us, as human beings, has been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses . . . from our children, family members, friends, and God.  There is simply no other possession, anyone could hold, more precious than this.

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

June 8, 2025: Yunuen Trujillo Preaches for Pentecost

Come, Holy Spirit . . .

 


Come, Holy Spirit ~

Replace the tension within me with a holy relaxation,

Replace the turbulence within me with a sacred calm,

Replace the anxiety within me with a quiet confidence,

Replace the fear within me with a strong faith,

Replace the bitterness within me with the sweetness of grace,

Replace the darkness within me with a gentle light,

Replace the coldness within me with a loving warmth,

Replace the night within me with Your day,

Replace the winter within me with Your spring,

Straighten my crookedness, fill my emptiness,

Dull the edge of my pride, sharpen the edge of my humility,

Light the fires of my love, quench within me the flames of envy,

Let me see myself as You see me, that I may see You as You have promised ~

And be fortunate according to Your word, “Blessed are the pure of heart,

for they shall see God.”                                                                                                      

(Anonymous)

Spirit of Wisdom . . .

 

Loving Spirit of Wisdom, 
guide my thoughts and my memories.
  
In the light of your love, 
may I see 
what is important for me to remember,
what is important for me to
hold to my heart, 
and what I need simply to
let go of in peace,

for I trust you to be my guide
even when the path
seems unclear to me.
Through Jesus Christ,
Amen.

Sister Rose Hoover  -

Image by:

MAF

Spirit Presence. . .

 




The Spirit of God is Always with Us  

at This Time,                    

in This Place

We awaken in our time to a Universe which is holy,
to creation which is not an event in the past, but a living event of the present.
We enter a new mode of human presence where we are not merely observers,
but where each of us is a participant in this moment of evolution.

Like all other creatures, we carry with us Wisdom and Values, the dynamics of the Universe.
But unlike other creatures, we must choose whether and how we will live in harmony
within this sacred web of creation.
May we be open to the Source of All Being, Our God within and among us!

We have the capacity to wonder,
and to celebrate this great mystery of existence within such a magnificent Universe!
In us the Universe enters into a great celebration of itself.
We are part of the Dance, the Great Work, the Great liturgy which is the Universe unfolding.

Glory to You, O God, Source of All Being!
This great Liturgy finds expression at this moment in us,
gathered here in a posture of prayerful openness, with listening hearts, loving spirits and a holy wonder.
May the sacred web that unites us with each other, our God and all creation,
ignite communities of light and hope throughout the Earth.
May we be open to the Source of All Being, Our God within and among us!

Together We Pray:
O Gracious, gentle Spirit of Love,
Your energy permeates the Universe,
Igniting Earth with
Your Goodness, Truth and Beauty.
Open our minds and hearts
To a deeper awareness
Of our interconnectedness with You,
Each other and all creation.
May we experience
Your unique presence
Within the sacred web of creation.

- Author Unknown

http://www.jesuitresource.org/