Welcome to my blog , enjoy your stay...
I enjoy writing and telling my story of how life is and I thank God for my days and for my family even though life is a challange ....but Jesus and walk it together each day with him I can do any thing ...thank you for stopping by and God bless your day
ecclesiastes1-2.blogspot.com
mere-flesh.blogspot.com
IT has been so long since I have been here I feel ashame, so here I am again depite me spending so much time on my facebook which is an addiction, and other sites I thought I had better came back and say hi.....
we are heading off on a cruise on the 25th and really looking forward to going
My daughter turned 21 we took her out for tea...
well i will come back in a few days
My weight is starting to come off again, yesterday I went in to be weighted at ww and to my suprise I lost1.1kg so I am so proud of my self, it is a long road but I will get there...with all the support and love..
I am not doing a thing today as it is so hot it is supposed to hit 40, david and I just went to the shops to get the kitten stuff,yes we are getting a kitten this afternoon BEN our youngest son wanted one and of casue I did also..so we went to buy the stuff we needed and it was so hot and the people who were out shopping! I was glad to GET HOME

wELL all from me for today I will catch up tomorrow I must go and keep my points up to date and do my spiritual reading for the day God bless

with Jesus help I am going to be able to get though my struggles ...thank you lord
Fr SCOTT Gave me permission to use this how ever I thought was powerful ,,it is very amazing story,,
| Time out for Thanksgiving By Sr Margaret Honner IBVM (This article originally appeared in 'Christian Traveller' our parish magazine)
A gentle, quiet and determined voice at the other end of the phone introduced herself, ‘My name is Dorothy. I am making inquiries about retreat opportunities. Friends tell me I can try out a short one at your place in case eight days elsewhere overwhelms me.’I could hear a profound weariness in her voice and suggested she come and see the Loreto Spirituality Centre and me before deciding to stay at all. She came, an exhausted little figure, carrying the burdens of her life on tired shoulders. ‘You need eight days to sleep, whatever about a retreat’, was my suggestion. Three weeks later Dorothy arrived to rest and recuperate and recognise the face of God in fatigue.On her second day she produced needles and wool to make a nativity set of knitted figures. She began to fashion the brown cloak of St Joseph. When we talked she said;
Attentiveness to St Joseph as she read about him in Matthew’s Gospel and watched his figure form in her hands lead Dorothy to identify with Joseph in his confusions that gave meaning and significance to her own as she recognised they had much in common.Within the process of the retreat the pre-eminent place of Mary in Catholic spirituality caused initial discomfort for Dorothy as a Protestant. Subsequently, staying with the Infancy Narratives reminded her of the birth of her own children and made a meeting place for Dorothy and Our Lady. In Dorothy’s case, childbirth was surrounded by competence and efficiency. In the most important moments of her life she remembered being treated with excellent clinical care, in the spirit of an assembly line production, in a country hospital with overworked staff. Confused and anxious she had longed for sensitive, human compassion and warm, sincere congratulations. Out of her own memories, however different her circumstances, she could imagine the loneliness of Mary at the birth of Jesus, surrounded by strangers, longing for the comfort and security of family and friends.As the days of retreat passed Dorothy’s story developed. The Scriptures she chose to read, meditate on and contemplate offered her a mirror to reflect upon her life which she realised was a Gospel too, Good News for Dorothy, the pattern of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection repeated in her own. Until three years before this time Dorothy and her husband, Brian had been farmers, imbued with a love of the land and a care for the earth. Dorothy delighted in her plantations of native trees and had grown over a thousand from seeds. When their personal recession loomed they sought advice and attempted to diversify. They planted almond trees. At night the foxes sucked water from the outlets of the irrigation system and pulled the hoses apart. When the almonds grew the foxes reached up to the low branches to feed on them.Just when it seemed they might start to earn a living, accumulated debts forced Brian and Dorothy to sell out. The land and their home were sold first. Waiting for the clearing sale, they camped in a caravan in the yard while the new owners renovated the home, achieving improvements that Brian and Dorothy could never have afforded. At night, when the work-men went home, they peered through the windows to see the transformation.By this time we were up to the seventh day. For night prayers that night we spent a simple hour in prayer. There was nothing else to do. Dorothy arranged candles connected with a thread of wool to symbolise the life and home she had lost. We read the Gospel account of Gethsemane and at intervals played the Taize chants, ‘Remember me when you come into your Kingdom’ and ‘ Stay here and watch with me.’ Gethsemane became the space in the Gospel which allowed Dorothy to be identified with Jesus in abandonment, disintegration and desolation. Afterwards Dorothy explained,I took the time to revisit our farm in imagination. I walked all over it and farewelled each tree. I went into every room of the house to say goodbye. Now my heart can leave.Dorothy’s story offers a gracious representation of the power of God to be present, active and healing in the very ordinary events of our lives so that each moment is made extraordinary. The patron of retreats, St Ignatius Loyola, drew attention to this amazing mystery in his classic retreat manual, ‘The Spiritual Exercises.’ His text identifies four essential movements of God in the spiritual life. These insights directly inform Dorothy’s experience.Firstly the Holy Spirit uncovers what it is in our lives that is hurting us the most.A thread in the fabric of Dorothy’s life was to be left out, left behind, pushed to the margins of existence. The Christian word for this is ‘sin’ which in both Hebrew and Greek literally means ‘missing the mark’.The initiative of grace is to unmask sin, disorder or dysfunction so that it and its effects may be healed and redeemed.The second movement, in establishing us in grace is to throw fresh light on our lives.Primarily, for a Christian, this is through God’s revelation in Jesus and the community he created around him. In this retreat Dorothy met Our Lady in a new and illuminating way and was encouraged with the truth that the Gospel interacts and overlaps with our lives, filling them with meaning and direction. A telling line from an almost forgotten sermon comes to mind in this regard, ‘God has to come and meet me where I am ‘cos, sure as hell, I cannot go wherever it is he is.’The third aspect of Ignatian spirituality is to be identified with Jesus in suffering,as Dorothy was, with and in Gethsemane. In experiencing at depth Jesus’ passion and death a realisation of God’s presence in her grief and losses emerged allowing her to enter into a detachment and freedom of spirit that cannot be constrained by any circumstances. Extreme suffering can easily cause despair. To face and move through it develops compassion, the capacity to be with others in all their experiences: sorrow or joy, anxiety or relief, success or failure.Quite often in the microcosm of a retreat there is an experience of a fourth dimension of God’s grace also identified by Ignatius. For Dorothy this did not happen. It was not God’s time then. Eighteen months later when we met again she was able to say that quite recently the powerful, gentle energy of grace that signals profound union with God became her experience when during a Church service every spoken, sung and read word came alive as if everything was directed and meant for her. David Fleming in his version of ‘The Spiritual Exercises’, gives these words for this grace, ‘...the gift of being able to enter into the joy and consolation of Jesus in the victory of his risen life.’1 This individual and personal ratification of the Resurrection allows us to find God in all things, to recognise that he is already there,everywhere, wherever we choose to look and to know that with all the urgent dynamism of love he is eternally intent on discovering each of us and making everyone another revelation of his compassionate creativity ( 2 Cor. 1:3-14). Being united with Christ, drawn into the Father’s presence(Gal 2:19-20), we move outside ourselves into union with him and receive him too as our principle of life. Occasionally the breath of the Spirit disperses the clouds of mystery that surround the Trinity and for a moment we find ourselves in a place of truth, recognising with new intensity the pattern of history, God’s unfolding of each individuated covenant of grace for and in community. With Dorothy, in St Paul’s words, we can affirm, ‘In Christ and through faith in him we can speak freely to God, drawing near him with confidence.’(Eph. 3:12) and expect Paul’s prayer to be made real:
In giving permission for her story to be told, Dorothy wrote,Now you have written down what happened at my retreat I am beginning to see what happened! You may use my story as you see fit as I hope my experience of awareness of God in my life may also come to others.
|
So there is much to be said of “being alone”, and it is a different thing than merely “loneliness”. Loneliness is a craving for human company, for identification, often for attention. And there is nothing wrong with that, it is in our nature as human beings to desire the company of others. But one can turn “loneliness” into “being alone with God”, and surely, if we can do that, we will not be truly lonely…
IT is true,I stand at the door of your heart,day and night. Even when you are not listerning,even when you doubt it could be me, I am there. I await even the smallest sign of your response,eventhe least whispered invitation that will allow me to enter.
Whenever you open the door to your HEART, whenever you come close enough, you will hear me say to you again and again ,not in mere human words but in spirit:No Matter what you have done I love you for your own sake.come to me with your Misery and your sins with your troubles and needs,and with all your longing to be loved. I stand at the door of your heart and knock....Open to me.for I THIRST FOR YOU:........
God wants me to be silent so he can work in my heart
I wish you all a very Happy New Year
all sorts of bobing music to help me clean the bed room
Mary, Our Model in Suffering
O Mary, you became my Mother at the height of suffering and trials. Hence, I must have a great and complete trust in you. Whenever I am subjected to trials at the hands of creatures and am exposed to temptation and desolation of soul, let me take refuge in your Heart, my Good Mother, and call upon you for help.
Do not let me perish but give me the grace to be submissive and confident in trials after your example. Let me suffer with love. Let me stand, like you, at the foot of the Cross, if that is the Will of your dear Son.
Never will a child perish who is devoted to Mary. O good Mother, have mercy on me. I give myself entirely to you so that you may give me to your dear Son, Whom I desire to love with all my heart. Bestow on me, good Mother, a heart burning with love for Jesus. [Saint Bernadette]
I’m sure most people have watched scenes from the Passion many times, but I wanted to share this beautiful song with you, brought to my attention by a good friend.
But Mother Mary would never say, “He’s not just anyone”, would she. Our Lady of Sorrows, Our Lady by any of her magnificent names, Our Mother, would go through this for anyone, for each one of us, and does.
Filed under: Feastdays, Music, Prayer, Saints, Video Comments Off