The year is over, but God is good.

My friend in Jesus Christ, the time has come again to close the old year and open a new one. God, who is the Lord of history and the Knower of all that will come, has graciously led us through many obstacles and challenges, and protected us from the constant dangers which haunt our earthly existence. the Psalmist said of God, "through the desert His people He led." He guides every step of our journey. As I write this I remember a favorite prayer which I wrote years ago and which I try to say and live by everyday to this day.
Before the new constitutions for the Discalced Secular Carmelite Order came into effect in 2003, we, as Secular Carmelites, had the Rule of Life. it was a beautiful little document, and in it we had the three ideals that as secular members of the Order had to live by. These Ideals were, a deep sense of faith in God's infinite love for me, faithfulness to contemplative prayer, and a love for the apostolate. They are three true pillars on which one can build a happy and joyful path in this chaotic world. As I said, in those years I compiled these three ideals into a prayer which sums up a recipe for a life well lived. I would like to end the year by sharing this prayer with you, hoping that by the grace of God you will journey towards a similar direction, trusting in His Goodness and seeking to serve Him every day of your life.


Eternal Father,
Help me today to live the ideals of Carmel. Grant that I may always have a deep sense of faith in Your infinite love for me, that I may know that You watch over me every moment of my life, and that nothing happens to me without Your knowledge and consent.
Make me faithful to contemplative prayer, grant me the spirit of detachment it entails.
Lead me O Lord, to an ever fuller union with You.
Eternal Father, fill me with Your love, that I may practice fraternal charity with perfection, and that I may grow ever more generous in the work of the apostolate.
May I live out these ideals under the protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother and Queen of Carmel, through Christ our Lord, Amen.

"May the God of peace make you perfect in holiness. May He preserve you whole and entire, spirit, soul, and body, irreproachable at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls us is trustworthy, and He will do it." 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24.

Trusting The Good God.

Trusting God in everything is the wisest path one can take. Keeping free from sin and making time to be with the One "who loved the world so much that He gave His only Son.", is the most excellent strategy, bar none. All the other escapades into work, or money, or pleasure or knowledge, fade in comparison to a life seeking to be God's friend. In today's second reading we hear St. Paul telling us "He who called us is trustworthy, and he will do it. How good and reassuring it is to know that God is trustworthy, that He will never let His friends down, that we can sign a blank contract with Him and let Him fill the conditions. The Blessed Virgin said to the angel who brought Her the news of God's plan for her, "I am the servant of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your words." if we can truly trust God and confidently say to Him everyday, Lord, let it be done to me according to Your will today, tomorrow, and always. Then there is no reason for us to worry, to be anxious, and to fear any situation. he has already given us His own Son, will He not with Him also give us everything else? Why should we be afraid, have we no faith? The psalmist confidently says. "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?"
My friend, always seek God's friendship, resist sin with all your might, and always seek to find God in the events of your life. He is there always. He will never let you down, and when you find yourself wondering if He actually did let you down, watch and wait, and you will see that you were wrong in doubting His trustworthiness.
As we come closer to celebrate the coming of the Christ Child, let us ponder the joy this Divine baby brings to pure hearts. What bigger and better gift can we ask for? God is good, God is good, God is very good. Blessed be God forever.

Keep awake.

My friend in Jesus Christ, do not think that because I have not posted on this blog for several months I have forgotten all about you. On the contrary, you are always on my mind, and of course, in my prayer. The liturgical year has ended, and today we celebrate the beginning of a new one. We do not know which number it is, but it is probably safe to say it is well over two thousand years have passed since the very first one. And the Church still waits for His glorious coming. All the many generations that passed waited hopefully with the Church, but each one of her members has encountered the Glorious Christ as each of them moved into eternity. We too shall pass through that gate in the not too distant future. And that is a good thing, for we are made for Him. Today's liturgy reminds us of His promised coming, and in the Gospel Jesus tells us, "What I say to you I say to all. Keep awake." (Mark 13:37). This is probably the most important advise the Lord has to give us. To keep awake. I have often thought that my last words to the ones around my death bed would certainly involved these two words. keep awake. St. Teresa of Jesus too has something to say in this regard. "Hope, my soul hope, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for everything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one." Indeed our life here on earth is very short, and quite often we get caught in the worries of this passing world and forget our eternal destiny. This too is my advice to you my friend, "Keep Awake" for you do not know the day nor the hour. "pray always that you may have the strength to go through all the things that are to happen, and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:36). May the good Lord keep you in His peace and may He find you ready to stand before Him when you cross the threshold. The alternative is eternal enmity with God.the tragedy of tragedies.

Now Begin The Glorious Forty Days.

He is Risen, These were the words of the angel who appeared to the women who went to the tomb of the Lord. The greatest event since the fall of Adam and Eve. Death is not the winner anymore, it does not have the last say. He who is Life itself, and who came to die for us, rises from the depths of death to a new living dimension never seen before. The forty days that followed were the most unique in the history of humanity. Imagine those simple men who were chosen to be His disciples. They saw Him many times, He invited them to touch His wounds, to eat with Him, to sit and listen to Him as He taught them about their upcoming mission to go and preach the Gospel, and to baptize. No one else in history had such a magnificent experience happen to them. How they must have finally understood what God really planned for us, that we would live forever without the limitations of our sin laden bodies, prone to suffering and illness, and death. How they must have rejoiced as they went to their beds to sleep, having discovered the great glory God has in store for us. No wonder Thomas's response when he saw the Lord was " My Lord and my God." It is the cry of a man who has crossed the threshold of doubt into full understanding of the new reality.
Easter is a time to rejoice, it is a time of celebration of the victory of humanity gained through its one and only Savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us be still and rejoice, for now we know that through Him we can only win. "I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, and have revealed them to mere infants." ( Luke 10:21.)  May Your Name be blessed forever.
The great writer G. K Chesterton once said that "Peace and joy constitute the greatest secret of Christianity." A true Christian is a person full of hope and joy, knowing that eternal glory is his reward. I can imagine the angels singing to the Blessed Virgin the "Regina Caeli".

Queen of heaven rejoice, alleluia,
for the Son whom you merited to bear, alleluia,
has risen as He said alleluia.
Rejoice and be glad O Virgin Mary, alleluia.
For the Lord has truly risen, Alleluia.

This is the meaning of Happy Easter.
 

Blood On The Door Posts.

Dear friend in Christ.

On this Holy morning of Good Friday, the day God died for us, my heart is filled  with the desire to share with you this awesome mystery that paid for our sins and  brought us back to life. Yesterday, at the Mass of the last Supper, the Church celebrated the institution of the Holy Eucharist.  " Jesus, on the night when He was betrayed took a loaf of bread and when He had given thanks He broke it and said, 'This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes." (1 Cor. 11. 23-26).
On this night we encounter again the command about eating which God gave to our first parents in the Garden. Only the command is now inverted. In Genesis we read. "You shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." (Gen.2:17). But tonight, only a few hours before His death on the cross, He commands us to eat this bread which is His body, and drink this cup which is the cup of His blood. " Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you." (John 6:53.).
In today's Office of Reading, there is a reading from the letter to the Hebrews ( Heb 9:11-28.) explaining how God prepared His people in the old testament by commanding them to sacrifice an unblemished lamb and eat it, and also to sprinkle the blood of the lamb on their door posts to keep the angel of death away. St. John Chrysostom continues ( in the second reading.) by saying that the blood sprinkled on the door posts is a prefigurement of the blood of Christ smeared on our lips when we drink of the cup of His blood. Our lips being the doors of the temple of Christ.
Here we can understand what the Eucharistic St. Paul means when he says. " if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." (Rom 10:9). This is the true confession of faith, the saying of Amen at the moment of receiving the Body and Blood of the Risen Lord. A mystery hidden from unbelievers, but revealed to those who are being saved.

"How deep are the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How inscrutable His judgements, how unsearchable His ways."  Now, through His passion and death we can participate in the command to eat, so as to repair the damage done be the disobedient eating in the Garden.
As we celebrate God' gift of Himself on this Friday, let us meditate on the last moments of Our Lord on the cross, when He shed His blood to the last drop, and try to begin to understand how much He loves us.

God, The Great Investor.

My brother,
On this Holy Week, I write to you that I may share with you some thoughts about our loving God, "Who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for the benefit of us all." ( Rom. 8:32)
During these days, the Church Liturgy calls us to remember and meditate on the events that led to the last days of our Lord's life on earth.
The first five weeks of Lent have been preparing us for this very moment. The Son of Man willingly surrenders Himself to the Enemy, that the great drama of the redemption of humanity from the tyranny of death might unfold.
Through prayer and penance, we open our hearts that the Heavenly Father might give us the grace to comprehend what Jesus and His Mother went through in these final days on the way to the cross.
It is sad to think that God's greatest gift of love had to be mingled with sinful humanity's vilest acts. After a long period of machinations and plotting to destroy the Lord of Life, He is betrayed by a close friend, denied and abandoned by those who had promised Him loyalty, lied about, and made victim of the most shameful piece of lobbying in the history of humanity, condemned by a cowardly politician, even though he knew he was condemning an innocent man. He was jeered, scourged, crucified, and humiliated, then killed by violent men gone wild, who manifested what lies hidden in our sinful hearts.
This, the greatest event, reveals to us the unimaginable love God has for us. He was willing to invest this most precious gift of Himself, that He might, in the future, reap a harvest of love. For love can only be repaid by love.
Now, my brother, consider that God is not sadistic, Scripture tells us "He does not grieve or afflict anyone willingly." ( 3:33.) All that Jesus suffered He sufferred because it had to be suffered. If God had to make His Son suffer so much. How ugly must sin be that it needs so much to repair for it?
God, the Great Investor, "out of the very love He has for us, even when we were dead through our transgressions, brought us alive together with Christ." ( Eph. 2:4.).  He chose the Cross as the instrument of His investment, and thus turned the world's suffering brought on by sin, into a precious jewel made perfect in the dimension of the cross sanctified by Christ.

Is it a wonder then, my brother, that great friends of God teach us to treasure suffering? St. John of the Cross advices us that when something unpleasant happens to us, we ought to look at Jesus crucified and be silent. And, he asks, "What does anyone know who does not know how to suffer for Christ?" As we go through the mystery of our Savior's death on the cross, we rejoice in the knowledge that it leads to His Resurrection and victory over death. And, if the All Knowing God turned the hideous cross into a priceless investment instrument, how much ought we to treasure it and learn to see all the events of our lives as steps toward this now precious cross that will lead us to life?

I used to think of life
a chain of hits and misses.
But now I make of it
a garland of God's kisses.

I used to gauge each act
a change for gain or loss,
But now I know that all
combine to make the cross.

For God has said to me,
through grace.
My thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor your ways, my ways.

Our Suffering God.

Dear friend in Christ,
                                 It has been a while since I last posted. The past month was a very hectic time for me, in more ways than one. But God's mercies never cease, and so, with His help, here I am with the first blog of 2011. 2010 is gone for good, dumped in the junkyard of time with the billions that came before it. A mere speck in the vast ocean of eternity. All we have of it are memories in our minds, and experiences that further cooked our hearts on the journey to God. We will only take with us to eternity the good and kind deeds we performed in the name of love, for as St. John of the Cross says, "In the evening of life we will be judged on love alone".
One of my favourite contemporary artists is Paul Simon. Beautiful music, a gentle voice, and powerful lyrics that shoot piercing arrows into the human heart. In one of his songs (Slip sliding away), there is a very poetic and haunting verse that says, "I know a man who wears his passion for his woman like a thorny crown."  Who of us does not know someone who fits this description? We all struggle to love, and suffer, as we do so in this imperfect world we live in. Love hurts us, whether it is between a man and a woman, or between parents and children, or friends, or neighbours, Loving is a constant struggle. Whether we like it or not, since the Fall of our first parents, pain has been one of the ingredients of love.
But this verse can also truly and sincerely be applied to God.  "I know a God who wears His Passion for His children like a thorny crown." God is not idle or aloof, He chose to enter into our world of suffering by becoming one of us and sharing with us everything but sin. He did not make a wounded world, for everything He made was good. Recently I was reading the story of creation in the first chapter of the book of Genesis. In those 31 verses, seven times it says that God saw that what He made was good. And He saw that the light was good, He saw that it was good, He saw that it was very good. But with original sin everything changed, everything that is, except the immutable love of God. I have often thought that after the Fall of Adam and Eve, God had to make some executive decisions, one of which surely was that He would have a policy of infinitely generous forgiveness, knowing how weak and fragile humanity has now become.
God, who is rich in mercy and compassion, chose to suffer and weep with us. Even to this very day He suffers our ingratitude and our indifference.
We have just celebrated Christmas, the feast of the birth of the God made Man. It is of course, a joyful feast, for in the Christ Child we, who lived in darkness, have seen a great light. But few of us perhaps consider the fact that in the few days after Christmas the Church reminds us of those who suffered for Him and with Him, On the 26th of December we celebrate the feast of St. Stephen who was stoned to death for Christ. and on the 27th we celebrate the feast of St. John the evangelist who was exiled for Christ. And on the 28th. we celebrate the feast of the Holy innocents whom Herod killed when he found out through the wise men that a King of the Jews was born in Bethlehem. So the coming of Christ among us, while filling us with joy, also unites us with His redemptive suffering. We are all given this great opportunity to share in His suffering and be one with Him in His death.
And so I wanted to start this new year with the image of God as someone who wears His passion and love for us like a thorny crown. It is a beautiful  image, fully manifested in the Passion of Our Lord. The King of kings and Lord of lords, mocked and humiliated by the very ones He created to love Him. It is the image of Christ wearing His passion for the Church with all the sins of her members,, like a thorny crown. St. Paul says, "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never ends."
I do not know where Paul Simon stands when it comes to God, may he, and his family, and all of us, come to know this God who loves us and suffers for us, who wears His passion for us like a thorny crown.