Eucharist Matters
The Eucharist is the "source and summit" of our Christian lives and spirituality. Whatever may compromise It's centralness, "matters."
Sunday, March 26, 2023
Signs of God's Love
Friday, October 22, 2021
"Evil is at Hand"
Reading I Rom 7:18-25a
Brothers and sisters:
I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh.
The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
For I do not do the good I want,
but I do the evil I do not want.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it,
but sin that dwells in me.
So, then, I discover the principle
that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self,
but I see in my members another principle
at war with the law of my mind,
taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Miserable one that I am!
Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The moral life tells us to choose good and avoid evil. This passage from scripture tells us that we are aware of this but because evil is at hand to upend the good we are willing to do, we must take into ourselves the law of God, fight against the evil presented within our minds by trusting on the Lord to deliver us from ourselves. Terri
Saturday, October 02, 2021
My Guardian Angel Stories
Today is the Feast of the Guardian Angels so I would like to honor my messenger and helper, consoler, and fighter for me, by recording the Guardian Angel stories I remember.
The first time that I remember feeling protected from harm by God and my Guardian Angel is when I was about 17. I did not have my Driver's License, yet. I was in Chula Vista, California visiting my Aunt and two cousins. I went with my younger cousin by about four years, Lesa, to a house of a friend of hers. This house had a circle gravel drive. They had an open air motorized go cart. I had ridden in go carts before because our neighbor Troy at home in Independence had a small motorized go cart.
The go-cart in California required you to break with your left foot. The steering wheel shaft was between your two feet so you could not move one foot from gas to break. Well, I took a turn at driving the go cart, but did not get very far when I was going to fast and could not go around and around in the circle drive, which was the plan because I could not break with my left foot.
The next thing I remember is going through trees and just as I came to the curb and a street the go-cart stopped. One wheel in the street and the other three wheels still in the trees. Just in time, as a van was bearing down to hit me. The thing is, I never braked. I could not. I did not have the ability. I was not a strong teenager, either. It really shook me up. I cried and cried, coming so close to death and I told the adults I did not break but they did not say anything or console me in anyway. I can only attribute the breaking to my Guardian Angel. Thank you God.
Years later living in Overland Park I was sitting at a stop light going East on 119th street right before the Alt. 69 hwy. bridge. I pressed on the gas to go without paying attention. I heard a voice, "Look up!" I should not have stepped on the gas because I was about to rear end the car in front of me. I slammed on the breaks. That is the first and only time I have heard such a direct outside voice in my head before. It was not audible, just not of my thoughts. It was a simple save from my angel as there would not have been any injury most likely from such a slow start but for some reason I was warned. Our angels do not only save us from life-destroying harm.
Another simple save, that would not have killed me was when I was working downtown at the KC Star for KansasCity.com. I was in our little kitchen area. I had on brown heels with the heel in the center of the heel of the show rather than at the end. It was skinny, although, less than two inches. They were not easy to walk in. I slipped in the shoes and went down flat on my whole body and face, but did not get hurt at all. As I was going down I saw a white flutter. I believe it was my Guardian Angel that I saw on the way down and that my helper saved me from harm, gently lowering me, although, I fell flat.
Another time I fell but was not harmed, was when I was at my brother Patrick's house in Jefferson City. It was Christmas morning, 2008. My guest room was in the attic bedroom. It was very nice up there but the six stairs to get to the second floor landing were narrow and steep and there was not a railing. I also had on furry slipper socks. Well, I fell forward and missed three steps and landed on the hardwood floor landing without breaking a hip and not being in any pain except I did break the small bone in my right ankle. But, I had saw the falling but then did not feel it as I landed on the landing. Although, I broke my ankle, it could have been so much worse. I believe Guardian Angels keep us from worse harm.
There are many other close calls and stories of protection. There are stories of peace and help with wisdom. As I remember them I will record them here from now on. Peace in Christ.
Sunday, February 28, 2021
Be You
Today, through social media, there are so many Catholic lay persons who share their gift of talent with their gift of time by posting, blogging, and writing wonderful content on the spiritual life for other's edification. Sometimes I feel, "Why can't I do more of that?" I usually just re-post and share what other's write.
We have to remember that those who are prolific in their writing and sharing have been given the grace of time and talent, perhaps, in a larger dose and with their Fiat they respond and their work for God's Kingdom is noticed and often used by others with the help of a docile mind and heart to the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit.
If one wants to do more, one must ask for the graces to help build up the kingdom and you may be prompted to do work for God that is very different from the prominent works of Catholic bloggers and writers. Be you.
Wednesday, September 23, 2020
Receiving Graces
God gives people different amount of graces. This is evidenced by Mary, who "was full of grace", whereas, we are not. If people don't pray they won't get more grace to be virtuous, so they will continue in their sin and not grow spiritually. But, God knows why they continue on the wrong path or sin, and understands their psychological issues, so only He can judge their culpability for their sins.
We need to say 'yes' to the grace when it is given to us. But without faith formation most people don't recognize it or see it when it "happens" or is given to them, so they can't grow from the offering of grace. I know I have gotten graces that I was not fully cognizant of. St. Faustina wrote in her Diary that God will give the grace to someone else if you don't take what He offers. So, we just have to pray that we and others accept the grace when it is given to them, especially in the case of the grace of conversion to love Christ and His Church.
Sunday, August 11, 2019
Perfection and Union with God
Sunday, June 09, 2019
Helpful Catechesis on "Lead us not into temptation"
The text below can help clarify why the Church in the United States does not need to follow Italy and Germany in revising this line of the "Our Father."
See Chapter 9 of St. Augustine's Treatise on Matthew 6-7, "On the Sermon on the Mount", Book II:
And bring us not into temptation.Some manuscripts have the word
lead,which is, I judge, equivalent in meaning: for both translations have arisen from the one Greek word which is used. But many parties in prayer express themselves thus,
Suffer us not to be led into temptation;that is to say, explaining in what sense the word
leadis used. For God does not Himself lead, but suffers that man to be led into temptation whom He has deprived of His assistance, in accordance with a most hidden arrangement, and with his deserts. Often, also, for manifest reasons, He judges him worthy of being so deprived, and allowed to be led into temptation. But it is one thing to be led into temptation, another to be tempted. For without temptation no one can be proved, whether to himself, as it is written,
He that has not been tempted, what manner of things does he know?or to another, as the apostle says,
And your temptation in my flesh you despised not:for from this circumstance he learned that they were steadfast, because they were not turned aside from charity by those tribulations which had happened to the apostle according to the flesh. For even before all temptations we are known to God, who knows all things before they happen.
The Lord your God tempts (proves) you, that He may know if you love Him,the words
that He may knoware employed for what is the real state of the case, that He may make you know: just as we speak of a joyful day, because it makes us joyful; of a sluggish frost, because it makes us sluggish; and of innumerable things of the same sort, which are found either in ordinary speech, or in the discourse of learned men, or in the Holy Scriptures. And the heretics who are opposed to the Old Testament, not understanding this, think that the brand of ignorance, as it were, is to be placed upon Him of whom it is said,
The Lord your God tempts you:as if in the Gospel it were not written of the Lord,
And this He said to tempt (prove) him, for He Himself knew what He would do.For if He knew the heart of him whom He was tempting, what is it that He wished to see by tempting him? But in reality, that was done in order that he who was tempted might become known to himself, and that he might condemn his own despair, on the multitudes being filled with the Lord's bread, while he had thought they had not enough to eat.
the furnace proves the potter's vessels, and the trial of tribulation righteous men.Joseph therefore was tempted with the allurement of debauchery, but he was not brought into temptation. Susanna was tempted, but she was not led or brought into temptation; and many others of both sexes: but Job most of all, in regard to whose admirable steadfastness in the Lord his God, those heretical enemies of the Old Testament, when they wish to mock it with sacrilegious mouth, brandish this above other weapons, that Satan begged that he should be tempted. For they put the question to unskilful men by no means able to understand such things, how Satan could speak with God: not understanding (for they cannot, inasmuch as they are blinded by superstition and controversy) that God does not occupy space by the mass of His corporeity; and thus exist in one place, and not in another, or at least have one part here, and another elsewhere: but that He is everywhere present in His majesty, not divided by parts, but everywhere complete. But if they take a fleshly view of what is said,
The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool,— to which passage our Lord also bears testimony, when He says,
Swear not at all: neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool,— what wonder if the devil, being placed on earth, stood before the feet of God, and spoke something in His presence? For when will they be able to understand that there is no soul, however wicked, which can yet reason in any way, in whose conscience God does not speak? For who but God has written the law of nature in the hearts of men? — that law concerning which the apostle says:
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing them witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another, in the day when the Lord shall judge the secrets of men.And therefore, as in the case of every rational soul, which thinks and reasons, even though blinded by passion, we attribute whatever in its reasoning is true, not to itself but to the very light of truth by which, however faintly, it is according to its capacity illuminated, so as to perceive some measure of truth by its reasoning; what wonder if the depraved spirit of the devil, perverted though it be by lust, should be represented as having heard from the voice of God Himself, i.e. from the voice of the very Truth, whatever true thought it has entertained about a righteous man whom it was proposing to tempt? But whatever is false is to be attributed to that lust from which he has received the name of devil. Although it is also the case that God has often spoken by means of a corporeal and visible creature whether to good or bad, as being Lord and Governor of all, and Disposer according to the merits of every deed: as, for instance, by means of angels, who appeared also under the aspect of men; and by means of the prophets, saying, Thus says the Lord. What wonder then, if, though not in mere thought, at least by means of some creature fitted for such a work, God is said to have spoken with the devil?
You fool, this night your soul shall be required of you: then whose shall those things be which you have provided?Certainly the Lord Himself says so in the Gospel, to which those heretics, whether they will or no, bend their necks. But if they are puzzled by this circumstance, that Satan asks from God that a righteous man should be tempted; I do not explain how it happened, but I compel them to explain why it is said in the Gospel by the Lord Himself to the disciples,
Behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat;and He says to Peter,
But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not.And when they explain this to me, they explain to themselves at the same time that which they question me about. But if they should not be able to explain this, let them not dare with rashness to blame in any book what they read in the Gospel without offense.
There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man;while he says at the same time,
But God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to bear it.And in that sentence he makes it sufficiently evident that we are not to pray that we may not be tempted, but that we may not be led into temptation. For we are led into temptation, if such temptations have happened to us as we are not able to bear. But when dangerous temptations, into which it is ruinous for us to be brought and led, arise either from prosperous or adverse temporal circumstances, no one is broken down by the irksomeness of adversity, who is not led captive by the delight of prosperity.
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