Dead or Alive?

Easter arrived in all its glory. The weathermen said “Rain” but God chose weather that was lovely, sunny and quite warm after a cold and bitter winter. The flowers made an appearance in all their finery and so did I. I believe that each Easter after the sad days of Lent with their great introspection and decision-making for becoming a better person that I need to ask myself the question: What is God asking of me at this time? What can I do differently now because I am a better person for causing a little mortification in my mortal body to signify that I want to continue my work for good in the world?
And then within the week with a very heavy heart I said a final farewell to a dear friend and someone who has been with me for over 20 years. And I thought of all the things I believe about Resurrection. Can it really happen? Did it happen for her? Will it happen for me? How do I know?
First I read about Ezekiel, the prophet in chapter 37 and the Negro Spiritual that was written by a faith-filled people, “Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones…” They are going to get up and dance and walk around and how they are all connected. “The toe bone is connected to the foot bone” and so on.
The bones connect and disconnect in a rhythmic melody ending with “I hear the word of the Lord.” St. Paul updates this idea of God who seems in the bible to open graves at random and bring people back to life. In the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans in the New Testament, Paul writes, “For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:8) Oh, God, this is such a great consolation for me. Strengthen my faith; help me to believe in Ezekiel’s words, “I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord.” (Ezekiel 37:14)

Praying=Talking to God

LENT and SPRING: Perfect Together

As I begin my third Lenten season on the blog I wonder where I have come from and where I am going. I have discussed why there is a God; how meditating or spending time in thought can make my mind open more to spiritual things. This Lent I would like to study why for me Lent is so important. As the title suggests Spring and Lent can lead to some interesting similarities. Surely everyone is aware of the newness of life and the rebirth of nature. Birds sing, flowers blossom, trees bloom.
And I begin to do the same. I put away my winter dark clothing. I find my sandals and light clothes. I walk more and spend time outdoors in the sun. Ah, but I also clean house, change from dark colors to light ones. Dusting and rearranging funiture make me do some thinking about making my life more open and free. Spring is about re-birth and transformation. And so is Lent.
Lent opens with Ash Wednesday. It consists of prayer, fasting, and abstainance. In other words I am housecleaning my soul.
In the Book of Isaiah in the Bible, Chapter 58, God speaks to his people…”on the day of your fasting, you do as you please….Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?”
In the same passage, God tells the people what a real fast is. “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the opressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter–when you see the naked to clothe them, and not turn away from your own flesh and blood?”
I also try to remember some days of fasting. In particular I try to fast (not eat as much as every day and not eat between meals if possible). These days are usually Ash Wednesday, March 9 and April 22 Good Friday this year. In addition, on the Fridays in Lent I plan meatless meals; this is hard for me because I really like meat and don’t count fish, peanut butter and cottage cheese as favorites.
As I sweep my abode and scrub away the dirt I feel the pangs of hunger telling me that I need to read the words carefully that God gave to the prophet Isaiah in Chapter 58 and make certain that when I celebrate the great feast of Easter, I am ready to blossom forth like the favorites in my Spring garden.

Sore Throat? Here’s Some News for You!

What a winter we have been having and according to all the media it
isn’t over yet. I thought this might be interesting to you in this dull winter month. There was a holy man named Blaise, who was a bishop and killed for his faith in Armenia in 316 A.D. Because this is so long ago much of his story is word of mouth that is handed down by his followers. His story is as follows.
As a young fellow from a good Catholic family he was well educated in the knowledge of his day in the country of Armenia. He studied philosophy and medicine and became a physician. He felt something missing in his life so he became a priest. When the bishop of his city died Blaise was chosen to succeed him. People loved him and he was able to help them by words and miracles of healing. When the Roman emperor of the time decided that the Christians were the plague of his reign, Catholics were gathered up and put to cruel deaths. In prison and recovering from a severe scourging, Blaise was kept alive through the courage of women who sneaked food and water into this holy man. One of the mothers, the legend goes, came to him with a petition to heal her daughter who had an incurable throat disease. Sometimes the legend says the sufferer had a fish bone stuck in his throat and was choking. Bishop Blaise offered up prayers and a blessing from his prison cell and the ill person was healed. Sentenced to be beheaded Blaise prayed for his persecutors and asked that those who sought his aid would be helped even after he was killed. So 2000 + years later on the day he was beheaded,February 3, we ask St. Blaise to “deliver us from every disease of the throat and every other illness.”
These special prayers, like ashes on Ash Wednesday, are called sacramentals. While those who receive them might not be faithful Christians or full believers, these small ceremonies and blessings show the spark of a living faith and pleases God. It makes a sore throat feel better too. Try it.

New Year – New Beginning

Why does the idea of NEW make me feel good? Today, January 6 is called little Christmas. It is the celebration of the astronomers/kings/magi finally arriving for a visit to the important babe born in a Bethleham stable. According to the Bible, the family still lives in Bethlehem but have now moved into a house. It is probably two or three years later. All this can be figured from Chapter Two of St. Matthew’s Gospel.
When these three gentlemen arrive they meet the mother and child and leave their chosen gifts. It has been a long journey and they don’t have room in their saddlebags (yes, camels have saddles and saddlebags) so their gifts need to be meaningful and small.
They have brought three items considered very valuable in their world. Gold is always given to a king;frankincense is always used in the worship of a god; and myrrh was an herb used to ease pain and suffering. In 234 BC Callinicusis, ruler of Greece offered the same three gifts to the god Apollo. Did the Magi know this? They are usually considered to be Persians. Their appearance is commemorated on the twelfth day of Christmas. Does the idea of the twelve days of presents coincide with the three Kings?
What does this all mean for me? I love getting presents; people usually give me things they think I would like or could use. This year I received some money gifts, not gold but to be used as gold. I received some religious gifts one of which was a beautiful crucifix.
And for my chapped hands, face, and feet, some wonderful lotion.
Will I, like the three kings, make sure I greet the people in my life with joy and love? All of them! Will I see the goodness in everyone in my small daily circle of life; not for worship of them but rather for the specialness God has imbued them with. And when I finish each day can I say that I have been a true healer of hurts and slights?
In this new year, new decade, will I make a new beginning? I am certainly going to try! How about you!

O Come, O Come, Emmanuele!

The title of the most probably famous Advent Song stirs in me the coming of the Christmas event. I mean the real happening, the one responsible for the gifts and caring, the one whose birth precipitated all the stories, plays and songs we celebrate today. I wonder how many in this generation know the history of the first Christmas.
While it all took place in the little country of Jerusalem it has been absorbed by many of the world’s religions today and told as a tale that happened thousands of years ago.
For me the Four Sundays before Christmas are called Advent Sundays. Each one of them stands for the years that the people awaited their redeemer. After Adam and Eve “did their own thing” and were told to leave the garden and go into the imperfect world where sin and ugliness abide they had to wait for thousands of years to be allowed to return to the gates of the Holy PLace.
Sunday 1 asks us to think about all those in the Old Testament who waited and hoped the special person would come and save them from their hard times. Sunday 2 introduces a special person, John the Baptist, Jesus’ cousin and one who preached repentance and sorrow for personal evil. Mark’s Gospel (Chapter 3)introduces us to this brave man who tells us that he is unworthy to loosen the sandals of the one who is to come. Think about your cousins and favorite relatives and how they have helped you to become the person you are today. What have they given you? What have they taught you? How have they made you the special person you are today? By the way Voltaire, the French writer, has said that everyone can serve as an example–even as a horrible one.

Thank You God

Is Thanksgiving any more than the announcement of the coming Christmas shopping season? Or turkey? or time off for traveling? There is a certain lack of holiness about the holiday. And there is no religious nature contained in the actual founding of the event. Everyone knows that here in the USA we have so much to be grateful for–even in a recession. But do we realize that a “thank you” is only one of the four kinds of prayer we should practice?
In the Bible there are many mentions of prayer. Jesus, in the last words spoken at the last meal says a prayer thanking God for all the people who have been loyal and supportive of him(John 17).
So thanking God is a good reason to pray; do I do more than have the “gimmies” when I pray? You know, “Give me this or give me that.” Now you know two of the ways to pray: to ask for something and to thank God for a favor received. As a child I was taught the word ACTS as a way to remember the many kinds of prayer. And I was told that I should pray all the different kinds of prayers. The oldest form is ADORATION. Cain and Abel, the children of Adam and Eve, are first mentioned as they worship at altars they built to honor God. So now you know three of the ways to pray: Adoration, Thanksgiving, Supplication. The last one is the hardest for me. I always find it difficult to say that I am sorry. It is easier to find someone or something else at fault. But I realize more and more that I need to adore God, tell God if I am sorry to have offended not only God, but anybody hurt by my words or actions. God always forgives our acknowledgement of our imperfections. Then, forgiven, I can thank God for all the wonderful things and people in my life, for the good happenings.
Only now am I ready to say what I need or want, what God can do for me. So, this Thanksgiving Day, think of the word ACTS. And use all the letters to Adore God, to say you are Contrite for any wrongs commited, to be Thankful for all the gifts received and to pray in Supplication for those things you know you need to be the best person you can be. Now you can enjoy the day of Thanksgiving.

Special Holy Days

Although Christmas and Easter are considered the most important celebrations of the Christian calendar, November 1 and 2 are even more important to true believers as they should be important personal days in our lives. In St. Paul’s letter to the people of Ephesus Paul tells us that we have special gifts and talents. Everyone is different and our gifts are also different. But all the gifts work together and with Christ as the head we become the body of a perfect person, each joint fitting and joining together to form one whole body building itself into a new life.
Our beings become an important part of a very special group of persons who live holy lives. As time goes by we become better and better and -even if we fall or fail-we return to the important task of making ourselves into the best we can become. This turn toward perfection is hard and remembered. At the end we return to the Creator. St. Paul comments many times in his letters that the good people have fallen asleep. Not dead, not gone, just asleep.
On November 1 a special day is celebrated called the Feast of All Saints. These are the people who have lived as best they can, doing good deeds for others, helping those in need, being kind to those who might need help. These are the ones who have fallen asleep. Somebody remembers them; they are loved by those they aided. Perhaps no one but you remembers a certain person but around November 1 you can go to a quiet place with paper and pencil and write down the names of all those whom you loved, who helped you, who counselled you, who went out of their way to make you the better person you are today but are no longer in your life. These are the real SAINTS we should honor on November 1, called The Feast of All Saints.
And for those of them who have died we can remember them
very specially on November 2, the Feast of All Souls, by recalling their names and faces and their connections to our lives. To me that is why these two dates: Nov. 1 and 2 feel more important to me sometimes than the bigger celebrations of Christmas and Easter. And somehow after thinking of all these persons I feel so much better and stronger and eager to continue on my path through life.

Some Halloween Spirituality

My blog has been so serious lately I feel the need to lighten up a bit. And how better to do that than to reflect on some fun things. Since it is October I could not help but think that Halloween would be a good place to start. You know Jesus had fun in his life also. We know he went to a wedding with his buddies and they needed to get more wine. He visited his good friends Martha and Mary and Lazarus frequently when he visited in Jerusalem even coming after Lazarus died and raising him from the dead. And what better way to start a new
community than to come together at a fancy supper.
This is not the kind of fun we associate with halloween but the holiday began as a holyday! The real word is hallow evening. Hallow means holy and e’een is short for evening. November 1 is considered in the Christian world as All Saints Day. In Paul’s letters to the people he leaves behind he uses the phrase “the saints–those who have fallen asleep.” So we celebrate these saints on Nov.1. Now whenever people are being very holy and praying for those who have died, whom they miss, who are their heroes. These good persons believed the devil was very active and he was and still is. Satan did/does not want the holy groups to grow by leaps and bounds. So the bad angel called together all the evil spirits of the universe to come and attack the good people who were praying for their deceased loved ones the night before the big day.
So how is that for a factoid on how All Hallow’s Eve became the scary party night of ghouls and witches and goblins. Do have fun but know that the evil ones are out there prowling after those who follow the good road and we cannot always recognize them because they don’t wear red suits and have horns and smell like burning sulpher.

SPIRITUALITY . . . A GOOD WORD?

Why do persons turn away from this word? I do not think the hearts of people are very different today from centuries gone by. I do think that the meanings of words change. I have suggested that you think of sitting and meditating or thinking of different things in your life that you might wish to look at more closely. Usually there is a reason you pick a particular item. I talked about work, occupation, job, because that is where most of your life is spent if you are old enough to be employed. Even students who work can look at two kinds of occupations. It would be interesting to see which one is placed first: student or employment.
No matter who you are you probably would choose to be a better person. Why? What drives you to improve? Do I want to be more healthy? Do I want to be a better friend? Do I want to work for my town, city, country? Do I want more money? Better looks? a bigger job? These are definite things to think about.
All these thoughts are probably in your mind. They can be spoken but not felt, smelled, touched, or seen. They are non body ideas. Hence I want to call them spiritual. Humans have two parts: one is body and one is soul. When one talks about soul one is in the realm of spirituality. And at no time yet has the inference of God come up. Let’s think a little about spirituality and your life and your world and your works and meditate on the why of your life. I think you will be surprised at your findings.