Prince, King, Lord and Hero – Happily Ever After Awaits

“He said to me, ‘My divine heart is so in love with people, and with you in particular, that it can no longer contain the flames of its ardent charity. It needs you to spread them. It must manifest itself to people and enrich them with the precious treasures that I will reveal to you. These treasures are the graces of salvation and sanctification, necessary to rescue people from the abyss of perdition…’ This divine heart was shown me on a throne of flames. It was more resplendent than the sun and transparent as crystal. The heart had its own adorable wound, and was surrounded by a crown of thorns, signifying the stings caused by our sins. And there was a cross above it.” St Margaret Mary Alocoque

Once upon a time…. A young woman stumbled in the darkness, seeking something deeper… a love, a desire for ecstasy and happiness that only one true prince could provide. She searched the land, her heart and only found pain, fear and loneliness. On one fair day a great light shined upon her and directed her to a castle. She wasn’t certain of it’s existence. As she followed the light directing her path, she stepped through the doors and fixed her eyes upon her Prince Charming, her Lord, her King, the one true love of her hearts desire.

Have you ever dreamed of your fairy tale, your happily ever after? Or perhaps your fairy tale or happily ever after has come true?

I’ve spent a week in Disney World among princesses, princes, and villains. I’ve watched the fairy tales of my childhood unfold before my eyes. Among the adventures and the thrills, there is always a hero or a prince and a happy ending.

The fairy tales we heard as a child have a few things in common…

1. Heroine

2. Hero

3. Villain

4. Magical element

5. Happily ever after

Being engrossed in all of these fairy tales and happily ever after, I venture to imagine my own happily ever after, my own Prince Charming.

As I marvel in this dream of my personal fairy tale, I realize my life has definitely had these elements and I’m certain yours probably has as well.

Take a moment and reflect on these elements and your life. Reflect on yourself needing to be rescued, awakened from the depths of your sin and temptation. The villain is lurking around constantly trying to pull you away from your hero in your story…. Jesus. You may say, “well, my story doesn’t have a magical element.” What if the magical element is not supernatural but a decision, a choice that only you can make. That choice becomes the defining moment when the hero, your Prince Charming swoops in and rescues you from the villain that lurks around you and may be even within you. The story you were living begins to turn, perhaps rewritten, into the elemental finale of a happily ever after – your prince has rescued you and resides with you throughout eternity.

Yesterday, as I entered a place that had once given me great peace in a time I needed it the most, I fixed my eyes upon the prince that has always been a part of my life. It was then that I realized my Prince Charming was always there – here in this peaceful castle, the chapel of my church. I had already met my Prince Charming. He had captured my heart in the purest, deepest way many years ago and continues to do so. My satisfaction can only be found through Him and in Him. The key ingredient was that I had to choose Him. I had to make the decision to open my heart to Him and let Him fill it.

Phil Wickham has a song called “Til I Found You.” This song is a constant reminder to me in how my own story as I knew it was being rewritten as God’s story, my happily ever after when “I found [Him].”

I invite you to search within find the magical element to choose your happily ever after by finding your Prince Charming, residing in the castle – YOU.

Although He lives within me, I find great comfort in visiting Him in a tangible castle, the chapel of my church, as I fix my eyes upon Him in Adoration in the most simplest form waiting to satisfy me in every way. “I see you in a transparent Host as material substance, but faith takes away the veil with which you cover yourself, love shaking the foundations of my heart makes me feel your presence, and the joy you cause it to feel lifts it up to the sublime hope of possessing you, overcoming all the obstacles that separate us.” Conchita Cabrera de Armida’s, Irresistibly Drawn to the Eucharist

Good always wins

“I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35

I’m sure everyone has watched at least one Disney princess movie, if not several. Each is a story of love and each has some version of good and evil. What I love about these movies is that good always prevails in the end and most of all LOVE.

LOVE can be easy at times and it can be very challenging. Have you had those relationships where it was very easy to love the other person? They made it so easy because they loved you back with a selfless kind of love. What about those challenging relationships? Some of these can be within our own families. It can be a mother, a father, a sibling, a spouse, a child, or a good friend. They may have hurt you in some way or their form of showing love was demanding and selfish.

I think when Jesus was giving this commandment to love one another as He loved us, He may have had these difficult relationships in mind. I can’t remember where I read this but in this piece I was reading the author was comparing what it would look like for us today to resemble what Jesus did on the cross. Would you every consider volunteering to take the place of a man who is about to be executed for murdering your child? Consider what Jesus did for each of us. That kind of love for another is pretty hard to swallow for probably all of us – to take the place of another on death row who murdered your child.

Truly let that sink in for a bit in alignment with this very commandment Jesus gives us to love one another and the very action Jesus did by giving His life for each of us, who was on death row for our sins against our Father.

sunrise under cloudy sky illustration — Photo by Public Domain Pictures on Pexels.com

I’m not a saint by any means but I want to share a personal story that helped me to realize what Jesus meant in relation to me when He said “love one another as I have loved you.” After Mass on Sunday and hearing the nice homily that the deacon delivered, I went about my normal business. Later in the week, I attended a banquet with my daughters. It was my evening to have my daughters. My daughters saw their dad and went to tell him hi and returned to my table. After sitting for several minutes, waiting for our table to be called up to get food, I caught a glimpse of their father on the other side of the cafeteria alone. I whispered to both my daughters to go sit with their dad until our table was called up for food. Now, this may seem like a normal story to most people and you may be saying I don’t get it. What I want to share is that deep down I knew that my ex would never do this for me. His actions have repeatedly been quite the opposite – and this past week was proof of the repeated offenses. My actions were a result of Christ within me and not a result of me as my selfish human form. It was Christ’s love that flowed through me to give me the grace to turn the other cheek and show love to a person who has hurt me deep within, who has left very deep scars and continues to inflict me. It wasn’t until later that I realized the connection between my actions that night and the reading and it brought some peace to me.

I won’t pretend it’s easy to respond in love to those that hurt us or someone who just makes it difficult to love them, because it isn’t. It is expected of us. Even those individuals are God’s children and He loves them just as much as He loves us. To love like Him, we MUST love those that we may feel don’t deserve our love. Look at the cross, we didn’t deserve God’s love either, yet He freely gave it to us.

Choosing to do what Jesus would do will always bring light in the darkness. GOOD ALWAYS WIN – just as in the Disney princess stories. So the next time you are faced with the challenge of showing love to someone who has made it difficult for you to love, take that initiative and act in loving kindness just as Jesus would do for you after you committed your worst sin.

A Merciful Love

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire!” St. Catherine of Siena

Have you met someone you admire? That one person that has taught you how to be a better person? That one person that opened your heart to your Heavenly Father, that was a catalyst igniting your faith?

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday. It’s a day of celebrating God’s mercy. The devotion of Divine Mercy is based on the private revelations of St. Faustina. Most importantly, I think this devotion, the messages St. Faustina received and this day of Divine Mercy is a realization to each of us of God’s great mercy that He gives each of us in the graces we receive and ultimately the merciful love He asks of us to give to each other. This mercy is another expression of God’s unconditional love for us and is illustrated throughout the pages in the Bible.

Divine Mercy

Our response to this devotion of Divine Mercy should be an expression of bringing the love of Christ to those who are broken physically and spiritually. It is feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and sharing the love of Christ with those who feel forgotten. It is as simple as giving a hug to someone who is going through a difficult time and letting them know that God’s goodness is the ultimate consequence of their trial. It is as simple as volunteering to serve the community in some way. It is as simple as sharing hope and comfort with an elderly person by spending a little time with them. There are so many ways we can share in God’s Divine Mercy. He gives us opportunities everyday. I think the quote by St Catherine of Siena is so fitting – “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire!” That is truly what the message of Divine Mercy is for us in our daily life – to be the person God created us to be by showing His merciful love to the world.

One of the more personal experiences I have had in my life of Divine Mercy was through a few ladies in my life. These women have impacted my faith journey immensely. They have been examples to me and have guided me in my faith. They always pointed me in the right direction when my compass seemed a little out of whack. They have touched me in a way that led me on the journey of my life, my relationship with Christ. Jesus said “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. (John 17:20 NLT Catholic Edition)”

I never thought in a million years that I could ever be as they were to me to another. To share in this gift of God’s Mercy by sharing my faith through my journey, through my continued growth in trusting in God’s Divine Providence is a great blessings that I never realized was so impactful. Until the other day, I never connected my journey over the last few years as a vehicle of participating in God’s Divine Mercy. It was the words of a dear friend and sister that helped me to see that my own journey has been an example of God’s Mercy and has impacted those around me even when I didn’t see it. My heart smiles to see how God can use my own story, my own experience and the transformation in my faith to reveal His unending love to others, His goodness in all things, even the pain and sufferings. It is in this that I know my pain has produced much fruit in me and through me. It is humbling to be to others as those who were catalyst in my faith journey were to me. It’s another way of paying it forward – revealing God’s merciful love.

Sharing in God’s love story, His Divine Mercy, is simple. It’s sharing His love with one another. It’s taking the opportunity to love on someone in need, to pray for one another, to assure someone that God’s goodness is in everything, especially in those things that appear to be hopeless to our human eyes.

The greatest story I could ever share through my own experiences is the message of Divine Mercy – “Jesus I trust in you”. It is a message I was introduced to 6 years ago. One of the ladies that impacted my faith journey used to tell me to say these 5 words when my struggles were at their peak. May this message be a catalyst to many just as it was to me during a period I needed to hear it the most.

“JESUS I TRUST IN YOU”

Prayer – my design or God’s?

“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and redeemer.” Psalm 19:14

Do you feel frustrated when you sit down to pray and your mind is cluttered with distractions? Do you think the clutter is really clutter or a distraction or is it there for a reason? Does this clutter or distraction have a purpose in that moment, in your prayer? What is God inviting you to discover?

Many years ago, I remember walking into my very first meeting with my spiritual director and telling her that I couldn’t pray, my mind was cluttered with all this stuff. Her response to me was – perhaps you should bring this clutter into your prayer.

I had to chuckle today as I was reading today’s message in “An Ignation book of days” by Jim Manney. It was exactly this topic – What to do about distractions. There was a quote from the book “Finding God in All Things” that said exactly what my spiritual director had mentioned to me about 5 years ago – “make the distraction the content of [your] prayer, to hear God’s word in this person, situation, whatever it might be.”

For me during that time period, prayer was a place I went to in order to remove myself from what was going on in my life. It was my escape, my refuge from my life. I felt so at peace in my prayer time. In other words, my moments in prayer FELT GOOD. They were shear moments of me conversing with God about how He was moving me internally at the time. At the time, He was helping me move through a key time in my life, so I think that I needed to feel this refuge and fortress from my life -this inner peace, comfort and protection. So when the clutter hit, it through me for a loop. It didn’t feel peaceful or comforting – it was far from GOOD. I know today, it was God inviting me to deal with the things that were cluttering my life, not just my mind.

Over the years, I still feel uncomfortable when a ton of things fill my prayer time that I don’t intend to bring to prayer. I want my prayer time to be peaceful, to just bask in the presence of God.

As I have grown in my faith journey, I have come to realize that this is me placing God in a box. When I am frustrated with the clutter, I’m not happy with inviting God to do some of the conversing.

Prayer is a key part of our relationship with God. In fact it is the kick of flavor in our recipe of our faith journey. Just as in our earthly relationships we have to allow the other person to do some of the conversing. We can’t always monopolize the conversation or we won’t really have a great relationship with that person. When we control or monopolize our prayer time, it is no different than taking the steering wheel from God in our life and directing what we want in our relationship with God and not what He may be inviting us to.

Listening is necessary in any relationship, especially the one we have with God. Next time, you feel distracted in prayer, listen to what God is inviting you to bring to the conversation and deal with in your life. It could be the next best thing in your life, a golden opportunity in your journey of life.

I love this song “King of the World” by Natalie Grant. It speaks volumes to me when I’m trying to control my life, especially what goes on in my moments of prayer. May God always be the King of your world.

Broken and glued…

Whatever villages or towns or countryside he entered, they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch only the tassel on his cloak and as many as touched it were healed. Mark 6:55-56

Have you ever felt broken? Or perhaps even damaged goods? Something or someone hurt you in a way that you feel has impacted you in some way? It can be something that happened 20 or 30 years ago, that is still affecting a small part of who you are today.

There’s hope!

I was reading the Gospel reading this morning from Mark 6:53-56. Wherever Jesus was, people were desperate for healing and wanted so bad to just touch the tassel of His cloak because they knew that they would be healed. When Jesus walked the earth in human flesh, people saw the miracles of healing. Today, many lose hope because sometimes these miracles aren’t as apparent.

Is it their faith that is being tested or is it that they completely lack faith?

We are each in different places in our spiritual journey and I firmly believe that God meets each of us wherever we are. I also believe He brings people in our lives and that Jesus is alive in each of us. Through us, through our actions and our prayers, He delivers healing power. Many times, it’s subtle and takes time. In some cases, we may not see the healing we are expecting, especially when the underlying healing is within the person’s soul. When it comes to spiritual brokenness, matters of the heart and the mind, it is our brothers and sisters and our relationship with Christ, our prayer, our openness to see and feel His healing power sweep through us that repairs that brokenness, preparing us for something much greater.

There have been many moments where I have felt I was too broken from things in my past, that I was damaged goods and could not move on when it comes to matters of the heart. Over the last several years, I have surrounded myself with wise, spiritual sisters and brothers. They have helped me to grow in my spiritual life and to see beyond my pain. They have showed me how much life God brings amid the suffering. Most of all they have helped me to see God’s promise of love, His love letter to me. The weeds in my garden were there for a reason. Although they needed to be pruned, they served a purpose. Their purpose was not to keep me in the brokenness of my life but to move me beyond it. They were there to show me how to embrace life, a life full of beauty, full of life giving flowers. Although there are moments I still go back to my past and begin to weep for that woman that endured the heartache, I draw back to the present and rejoice with the woman that is thankful for God for all the brokenness throughout her life. It is in my pain and suffering throughout my life that I have flourished into the beautiful flower that God has created me to be. It is in His promises that I look forward to life from this present moment. My heart has found a new purpose and it has been repaired through the healing power of my savior. Although I have not touched the tassel from His cloak, I have received Him – body, blood, soul and divinity.

My dear friends, we need to “be sober and vigilant. Your opponent the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. (1 Peter 5:8)”. The enemy is looking for opportunities to knock us down and keep us down. This is what happens when we feel broken and damaged. I love the image of a piece of pottery that has been broken in pieces and then glued back together and repurposed for something even greater. This is how we defeat the enemy. We allow ourselves to be glued back together through the gifts of our faith and the gifts of each other.

If you are that person who feels broken or damaged, I invite you to find a sister or brother grounded in their faith to talk to, to bring the healing power of Christ to you. If you are not that person feeling broken or damaged, I invite you to look around you, there is someone who needs you to bring Christ’s healing power to them. Let them touch the tassel of your heart with their story so that you can be Christ like to them.

Life’s greatest sustenance

What sustains you in life, through your struggles, illness, pain? How do you find peace in knowing this life is not permanent?

Today, as I sat in the infusion room waiting for my IV of ferritin, I peered around the room. Surrounded by patients receiving treatment for cancer or other disorders, my heart poured out to these men and women. I visit this room twice every two years and the sadness I feel is always the same, yet part of me finds thanksgiving for the many blessings in my own life, especially my own hardships and struggles. Perhaps a bit of guilt sweeps over me knowing I’m only here to treat one of the two forms of anemia I battle that mainly results in exhaustion and tiredness with occasional feelings of faintness.

My disorder is mild and manageable in my daily life. As I think about these patients and how many or all are fighting for their life, I ponder my own peace and life sustainability. Often I’ve thought about facing the last moments of my life when that time comes – will I be afraid or at peace. Over the past few years when I contemplate this, I feel at peace knowing where I am in my faith journey and that because of it when that day comes I am on my way to a place that is beyond my own imagination. I love this simple quote by Pope Pius X. It’s simple yet it speaks volumes.

“Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven”.

We can look at this quote from two perspectives.

Receiving the Eucharist is like Heaven on earth. One may ask WHY? After receiving the Eucharist, we truly walk with Jesus within us. He can only take that place if we are in the state of Grace, meaning our souls are clean and welcome to receiving Him. Isn’t that what Heaven will be like? A state of grace walking with Jesus….
The second perspective is that if we are receiving Jesus then hopefully we are also following Him and striving for holiness as God desires us to. In this case, it also is the shortest path to Heaven because it leads us straight there.

The Eucharist is the center of my faith and my journey and it is in the Body and the Blood of Christ that I am strengthened and sustained in all life throws at me. Some may not truly understand what is contained in this bread and wine present in a Catholic Mass. If not, I challenge you to watch the link below on the miracle of the Eucharist at Buenos Aires. May your eyes and your heart be open to Jesus’ true presence in the Eucharist. Blessings to each of you!

Light in the darkness

Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Have you strayed from the path God was leading you on? Perhaps during some phase of your life, you took a different path, away from your faith. Looking back, can you see how easy it was to stray from God’s will in your life, to take a detour? May be one path looked more attractive, easy, or entertaining than the other.

This morning God let me in on a mini lesson.

I love to walk around the pond at work before starting my day. I sense God present around me as I walk prayerfully around the pond. I often ask God to reveal Himself to me, teach me or inspire me. Many times, He does just that.

This morning I started my day a little early. The sun had not yet risen, so the path I walked along was dark with light sprinkled around for some visibility. After praying, I allowed myself to be present to my surroundings. As I maneuvered through the darkness, I could hear the pleasant sound of the waterfall and the birds singing. Music to my ears. As I walked along the path, I noticed a little bird just as the path makes a small fork. I watched him and began to follow him. I detoured to the path that I normally do not take as I walk around the pond so that I could follow the bird. Even though I didn’t get lost, it reminded me how easy it is to wander from the path, to stray from God. I began to ponder this for a minute. In the struggles of my marriage, I could have fallen into hopeless despair instead of falling into my faith. Through my divorce, I could have run into the arms of another man, instead of being embraced by God. If I would have strayed from the path God was leading me on during the darkest days of my life, I would not be content in who I am, and who God is for me. I would not have seen all that God was doing for me, how He was holding and carrying me. Perhaps, eventually, I may have found the path again as the two paths merged.

foggy path — Photo by Johannes Plenio on Pexels.com

It’s so easy, especially when we are struggling with something, to turn to something else that may not be healthy for us. Sometimes it presents itself as the “thing” that will take away all our pain or something that looks more enticing. My mini lesson this morning validated John 1:5 “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Darkness is never dark when we allow God to be present within us. So in the darkest moments of our life, when we carry the Word of God within us, He is the “lamp for [our] feet, a light for [our] path” (Psalm 119:105).

I have seen this prevail in my own life as I allowed the tiny shimmer of light guide my path. It was Jesus in the Eucharist that shone upon my path guiding me closer to God as I walked through my struggles. This path wasn’t always easy but it has been a joyful ride, full of mountains and valleys, but it has never been dark because the darkness has always been overcome.

Have you allowed the light to shine upon your path in your journey? God’s light is never extinguished, as long as we accept the invitation to carry it.