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Thanks be to God!
Thanks be to God!
An occasional bit of wit 'n' wisdom as gleaned from the wise and learned. Family fun and times to share.
Sometimes we wonder, 'What did I do to deserve this?' or 'Why did God have to do this to me?' Here is a wonderful explanation!
A daughter is telling her mother how everything is going wrong: she's failing algebra; her boyfriend broke up with her and her best friend is moving away.
Meanwhile, her Mother is baking a cake and asks her daughter if she would like a snack, and the daughter says, 'Absolutely, Mom, I love
your cake.'
'Here, have some cooking oil,' her Mother offers. 'Yuck,' says her daughter.
'How about a couple raw eggs?' 'Gross, Mom!'
'Would you like some flour then? Or maybe baking soda?'
'Mom, those are all yucky!'
To which the mother replies: 'Yes, all those things seem bad by themselves. But when they are put together in the right way, they make a wonderfully delicious cake!
God works the same way. Many times we wonder why He would let us go through such bad and difficult times. But God knows that when He puts these things all in His order, they always work for good! We just have to trust Him and, eventually, they will all make something wonderful!
God is crazy about you. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning.
Whenever you want to talk, He'll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and He chose your heart.
If you like this, send this on to the people you really care about. I did.
Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.
I have to tell you that this treasure, sent to me by a new friend, Peggy, both touched me and lifted me up! I was privileged to meet Peggy on retreat last weekend. You know sometimes you just know when you've met a soul mate, a sister.
When I watched and listened I thought of all of you, and you know who you are, and I thanked God for you! God has blessed me with your love, your tenderness, your ever present listening ear.
The Hebrew people entered the desert feeling themselves a united people, a strong people, and you'd think that perhaps they would have experienced greater strength as they walked through. But no! They experienced the fragmentation and weariness; they experienced divisions among their people. They were not the people they thought they were.
When all of our idols are taken away, all our securities and defense mechanisms, we find out who we really are. We're so little, so poor, so empty--sometimes, even so ugly. But God takes away our shame, and we are able to present ourselves to God poor and humble. Then we find out who we are and who God is for us. The desert is where Israel experienced its sinfulness, that it was weak and unable to do any good. Our temptation is always to shorten the time, make our timetable God's timetable. We want to get out and get it over with. But we cannot rush the journey of faith. We have to attune ourselves to its times and seasons. You can't bake a cake quicker by turning up the heat to 450 degrees, nor can you slow it down by lowering it to 200. It will flop either way.from Great Themes of Scripture
by Richard Rohr, O.F.M.
Peters approached Jesus and asked him,
"Lord, if my brother sins against me, how often must
is forgive him, as may as seven times?"
Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times
but seventy-seven times."
(Matthew 18: 21-35)In Scripture, we can track one indication of the gradual movement of the human race (by God's grace) toward the Reign of God. It has to do with the reduction of vengeance.
~~~Genesis (which reaches back to pre-history) tells of Lamech, a son of Cain, who boasted: "I have killed a man for wounding me, a boy for bruising me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold." (Genesis 4:23-24)
~~~Exodus (which treats events that took place in about 1,200 B.C.) tempers this approach: "If injury ensues, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot..." (Exodus 21:23-24)
~~~Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, takes the human race to a new level: "You have heard that it is said, 'An eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you...when someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well." (Matthew 5:38-39)
~~~Now, 13 chapters later in that same Gospel, Peter asks how many times one has to do this. Jesus says that, to bring about the Reign of God, mercy must be measureless.
Vengeance prevents us from moving forward, for it simply adds evil to evil. Jesus calls us to break the vicious circle of evil for evil, and respond to evil with goodness, this bringing creation closer to its destiny.
The Self-revelation of GodThe dialogue between God and humanity is the give-and-take of self-revelation and response. That's what's happening in every relationship, you can't understand the rules of prayer.
In prayer God is gradually disclosing himself, revealing herself. So revelation and faith are correlative. There cannot be faith without revelation. We cannot believe in a person who has not shared himself or herself with us. To the degree that person has shared with us, we can believe in that person.
It's the same way with God. When we waste time with the Lord and listen, we're allowing
God to reveal not information but Self. This is what's symbolized on the cross: God is totally disclosed, God is the totally given God. But it takes us a lot of scraping and converting to open ourselves up to that disclosure. If we are filled with ourselves, there is, quite simply, no room for the other, and surely not The Other.excerpt from The Price of Peoplehood
Radical Grace, Daily Meditations
By Richard Rohr, O.F. M.~~~~~+~~~~
In reality there is but one prayer, only one substantial prayer. Jesus Himself.
In your life Jesus comes as the Bread of Life to be eaten to be consumed by you. This is how He loves you. Then He comes as the hungry one, the Other, hoping to be fed with the bread of your life, with your heart by loving, your hands by serving.
Jesus has drawn us to be souls of prayer.
Jesus is our prayer, and He is also the answer to our prayer. He has chosen to be Himself in us the living song of love, praise, adoration, thanksgiving, intercession and reparation to the Father in the name of the whole creation (unpublished.).
Love: a Fruit Always In SeasonDaily Meditation by Mother TereseEdited by Dorothy S. Hunt
God's love is total, unconditional, absolute and forever. The state of grace--God's attiugde toward us--is eternal. We are the ones who change.
Sometimes we are able to believe that God loves us unconditionally, absolutely and forever. That's grace! And sometimes because we get down on ourselves, and carry guilt and fear and burdens, we are not able to believe that God loves us. Biblically, that's the greatest sin: not to believe the good news, not to accept the unconditional love of God. When we no longer believe God loves us, we can no longer love ourselves. We have to allow God to continually fill us. Then we find in our own lives the power to give love away.Radical Grace, Daily Medications
by Richard Rohr, O.F.M.