Teresa ~ A Mega~Flower!

 

On October 15, the feast of St. Teresa of Avila will be observed in certain Catholic-Christian and Carmelite circles.  As Theresa of Lisieux referred to herself as the “little flower of Jesus," I suppose Teresa of Avila could be considered the “Big Flower” or “Mega-Flower” of Jesus!   She was a giant at the time she lived in the 16th century and her presence and force is still with us today!

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) “is one of the most beloved spiritual figures in history . . . she is known around the world as a great mystic, saint, reformer” and the first woman to be named Doctor of the Church!!  After a special vision, she was moved to reform the Carmelite order. She founded the community known as the Discalced (shoeless) Carmelites in Avila.  “The sisters wore hemp sandals, but their name referred to the strict poverty that was a feature of Teresa’s reform.”

She was the foundress of 17 Carmel convents, the author of four books, and considered one of the outstanding religious teachers of Christian prayer.  She was known to have a charismatic personality, along with wisdom and courage that was deeply rooted in a special love relationship with God.

Throughout her life, she suffered from migraine headaches, and other physical ailments, and experienced dryness in prayer for much of her life. However, it is also written that Teresa had the privilege of hearing God speak to her. She also began to see visions and Jesuit and Dominican priests came to see if this was true. They were convinced and declared that the visions were holy and authentic. 

In accounts of her life, it is said that when she would move into a prayerful ecstasy, there were always a couple of sisters that were appointed to hold onto the hem of her habit so that as she was lifted up in prayerful rapture, she wouldn't injure herself.

There also is the great story told of her on her travels where she encountered all the hazards of donkey carts which was one of the means of transportation of her time.  “One time her cart overturned, throwing her into a muddy river.  When she complained to God about this ordeal, she heard a voice from within her say, ‘This is how I treat my friends.’ “Yes, my Lord,” she answered, “and that is why you have so few of them.”

Prayers of Teresa:

Christ Has No Body
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
+  + +

May today there be peace within.  May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.  May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.  May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.  May you be content knowing you are a child of God.  Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love.  It is there for each and every one of us.
+ + +

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.

Guide me, Teach me, Forgive me . . .

 

 

 

Breathe Into Me the Courage to Make Something New

Thank you for all I forget are gifts, not rights.
Forgive me for all the grievances I remember too well.
Save me from the self-pity, the self-seeking,
the fat-heartedness which is true poverty.

Guide me, if I’m willing, (drive me if I’m not),
into the hard ways of sacrifice which are just and loving.
Make me wide-eyed for beauty, and for my neighbor’s need and goodness;
wide-eyed for peace-making,
and for the confronting power with the call to compassion;
wide-hearted for love and for the unloved,
who are the hardest to touch and need it the most.
Dull the envy in me which criticizes and complains life
into a thousand ugly bits.

Keep me honest and tender enough to heal
Tough enough to be healed of my hypocrisies.
Match my appetite for privilege with the stomach for commitment.

Teach me the great cost of paying attention that,
naked to the dazzle of your back as you pass,
I may know I am always on holy ground.

Breathe into me the restlessness and courage
to make something new, something saving, and something true
that I may understand what it is to rejoice.

Author: Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace

A Prayer for the World and More!

 

A Prayer by Rabbi Harold Kushner – 2003

 

Let the rain come and wash away
the ancient grudges, the bitter hatreds
held and nurtured over generations.

Let the rain wash away the memory
of the hurt, the neglect.
Then let the sun come out and
fill the sky with rainbows.

Let the warmth of the sun heal us
wherever we are broken.
Let it burn away the fog so that
we can see each other clearly.
So that we can see beyond labels,
beyond accents, gender or skin color.

Let the warmth and brightness
of the sun melt our selfishness.
So that we can share the joys and
feel the sorrows of our neighbors.

And let the light of the sun
be so strong that we will see all
people as our neighbors.

Let the earth, nourished by rain,
bring forth flowers
to surround us with beauty.

And let the mountains teach our hearts
to reach upward to heaven.
Amen.
 

The door . . .

 

You came down from your throne and stood at my cottage door.
I was singing all alone in a corner, and the melody caught your ear.
You came down and stood at my cottage door.

Masters are many in your hall and songs are sung there at all hours.
But the simple carol of this novice struck at your love. One plaintive
little strain mingled with the great music of the world, and with a
flower for a prize you came down and stopped at my cottage door.
Tagore
Song Offerings

Leaf mutterings. . .

 

 

A blade of grass  . . .

Said a blade of grass to an autumn leaf, “You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams.”

Said the leaf indignant, “Low-born and low-dwelling! Songless, peevish thing! You live not in the upper air and you cannot tell the sound of singing.”

Then the autumn leaf lay down upon the earth and slept. And when spring came she waked again — and she was a blade of grass.

And when it was autumn and her winter sleep was upon her, and above her through all the air the leaves were falling, she muttered to herself, “O these autumn leaves! They make such a noise! They scatter all my winter dreams.”

K.Gibran – The Madman Chapter 30

Feast of Pope John XXIII - Saint and Prophet!

 

October 11 . . .

Feast of Pope John 

XXIII - Saint and Prophet!

Not long after being elected to the papacy, Pope John took up residence in the papal apartments. These private apartments are hidden well inside Vatican City. John felt a little like a prisoner there, unable to come and go as he pleased and, more important to him, unable to invite friends to daily meals. It had become a custom for the pope to dine alone.

Pope John confided to his secretary, Monsignor Loris Capovilla, that he was unable to sleep through the night anymore. He felt lonely, and this kept him awake. He needed more conversation and more social stimulation to help him lose this feeling of being deserted . . .

Pope John simply could not accustom himself to the habit of eating all by himself, a practice which Pius XII had always maintained. In a very short time Capovilla was invited to join him at the table. The Pope’s appetite improved immediately. Shortly afterward he invited the cardinals of the Curia to be his table companions, one after the other. Little by little, bishops from all over the world, when they made their ad limina visits to Rome, were invited to join him for lunch or dinner. (Klinger, p. 29)

+  +  +

Once a distinguished luncheon companion ventured to remind John of the solitary eating habits of Pius XII. “Well and good,” John replied. “I value tradition and I grant that my predecessors did, too.  I must confess, however, that I have never found any place in the Bible which suggests that the Pope should eat alone." (Klinger, p. 29)

(Above selections from: Praying with Pope John XXIII by Bill Huebsch)

Quotes from John XXIII

• “It often happens that I wake up at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember that I am the Pope.”

• “Anybody can be Pope; the proof of this is that I have become one.”

• “The feelings of my smallness and my nothingness always kept me good company.”

• “To have accepted with simplicity the honour and the burden of the pontificate, with the joy of being able to say that I did nothing to obtain it, absolutely nothing; indeed I was most careful and conscientious to avoid anything that might direct attention to myself. As the voting in Conclave wavered to and fro, I rejoiced when I saw the chances of my being elected diminishing and the likelihood of others, in my opinion truly most worthy and venerable persons, being chosen.”

• "See everything, overlook a great deal, correct a little.”

• “Here I am at the end of the road and at the top of the heap.”

• ”Prayer is the raising of the mind to God.
We must always remember this.
The actual words matter less.”

• “Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.”

Indifference – The Enemy of Faith:

 

Indifference – The Enemy of Faith: 

                                 

The Twenty-Eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time 2026 

October 11, 2026

www.johnpredmoresj.com | predmore.blogspot.com

Isaiah 25:6-10; Psalm 23; Philippians 4:12-20; Matthew 22:1-14

  

Scripture today begins with this enticing invitation to engage in God’s banquet of rich foods and tasty drinks and to gather with loved ones free from harm of death, fear, and suffering. The message is that God is going to abundantly care for you and make sure all your needs are met. Saint Paul and the Psalmist remind us that God will supply whatever we need. In the Gospel, God invites us, through a parable, to a banquet, and we are told how people respond. We are invited to respond personally now. We hear the responses from people in the parable, and they are responses that we also hear now.

 

The first responses show us that the invited guests do not care enough to accept the offer. They have other things to do. Their farms, businesses, and family life are more compelling to them than an invitation to the wedding feast. They do not think they are rejecting the king with hostility. They say, “I have other things to do,” or “I’m too busy.” We, too, become preoccupied with work, possessions, entertainment, ambitions, and responsibilities, and a consequence is that God can gradually become less important. The danger is that good things can become substitutes for God. We become indifferent, as though God’s presence makes little difference to the way I live. God is no longer important enough to interrupt my life. We cannot see what is being offered: joy, celebration, and communion. 

 

Indifference is a progression that can become resistance, and this resistance can become hostility. Our hearts gradually become accustomed to not listening and to being closed. When we repeatedly say “no,” we stop noticing, then we stop valuing, and then we reject. When we do this in our relationship with God, we become less receptive to God’s presence and less prone to even hear the invitation. Indifference becomes the enemy of the faith.

 

So how do we make certain we do not become indifferent? We develop a habit of attentiveness. We might not hear God’s explicit voice, but it is present when we ask ourselves these questions? What is God doing in my life today? What is God asking of me now? Who did God place before me and why? Where do I need to be open to change? We may not realize we are being invited to a banquet or that God is trying to tend to one of our needs because these invitations may not be explicit and they may not come dramatically. They may come through an encounter, an insight while reading a Scripture passage, a chance conversation, a moment of discomfort, a sudden awakening, a request by someone in need. The question is whether we are woke enough, aware enough, to recognize the invitation. 

 

Notice that God’s invitation is wider than we think. The king tells his servants to “invite to the feast whomever you find.” The good and the bad alike are invited. So, this is not about worthiness to accept the invitation because someone unworthy might see it for what it is worth. This is not about goodness or badness. A good person may miss the invitation while a bad person accepts it. A person can be imperfect and still be deeply open to God, while an outwardly religious person may be inwardly closed. God’s generosity is extraordinary. It is about a proper disposition before God. The disposition is willingness to say “yes.” There are already people at the feast, not because they have achieved perfection, but because they have said “yes.” 

 

          God only asks for a receptive heart. We must be woke. We must be open to listen to receive, to change, and to respond. Missing the invitation to this feast would be a tragedy. Am I willing to recognize the invitation or am I too busy with other things that my heart and mind have become closed? What would it take for me to recognize that I am invited here and now? Remember the king’s words: Everything is ready; come to the feast.