Prayers for The Religion Forum (Ecumenical)

Beautifully put.

Congrats.

And thank you right back, my dear BB, in No Trump, Doubled, vulnerable.

So there.

I may have said before, my prayer after the Agnus Dei, around the time of the ‘fraction’ of the bread, is this:

Lord, break my heart.
For I trust against my fears that
If You break it, You will mend it
And fill it with yourself.

And as I receive the Lord, I pray what Thomas Aquinas prayed when Jesus asked Him what he wanted: Nil nisi te — Nothing but You[, Lord].

At some point this means no “consolations”, no exuberance, no FEELING of ‘presence,’ but only living the choice the Spirit has made in us.

We have chosen to die in Christ so that we may live in Him.

He lovingly respects that choice. We sin enough that no illusory props of “self-esteem” remain - only our longing.

And it is not a passionate yearning, but, wounded as we are, it is anemic, languid. The only available solace is a cold clinical observation that we choose Him, we hope in Him, we love Him, because “Where else would we go?” there is nothing but Him to choose. It is either to choose Him or to choose not to choose.

His body must have grown cold that Friday Night, while strife unimaginable took place in realms we cannot understand, with weapons we can never grasp.

We cannot even understand the cold, but we can feel it. And when there is nothing else, there is yet the knowledge, clutched at with weakening will, that HE is the VICTOR!

If I may not fight in His army, please, Father, let me die in it. To die in that strife is better than to live anywhere else.

“that God may be all, and in all.”

Children's Prayer To Mary

Dear Mother of Jesus,
look down upon me
As I say my prayers slowly
at my mother's knee.

I love thee, O Lady
and please willest thou bring
All little children
To Jesus our King.

Good morning, beloved in the Lord!

Humility — authoritatively derived from humus, earth, soil.

Part of the wonder if living in the Piedmont of the once mighty Appalachian massif is the variable quality of the soil. When I moved here 28 years ago, my first job was, no kidding, laboring in a Vineyard. Specifically we planted about 7 acres of vines. We used transplanting spades - all metal. You jam it in the earth, put the vine in the hole, then jam the spade a little behind the hole and rock it forward the compress the soil around the vine. Then step off a few feet and do it again. And again. And again.

In some spots, the soil was so clayey that it was hard to get the spade in. 10 feet away, in what I supposed was another part of the ancient river bed, it was so loose you could bury the bar just by rocking it back and forth.

On my place, which has been settled since the late 17th century, the soil is so compacted that parts of my alleged lawn will not permit a shrub to grow, only grass and moss.

But in most places if you dig a good hole and put the shrub in, it will grow, but VERY slowly at first. Near the porch I planted a Japanese boxwood (Buxus microphylla japonica) about 6” tall. It was a “volunteer” at my parents’ place.

For 3 years it just sat there. It was clearly alive but it seemed not to grow at all. Then, finally, it took off. Now it’s a yard high and vigorous.

I conclude that all the time when it looked like nothing was happening, it was devoting all its energy into sending roots downwards and outwards.

You can make the requisite analogy. May God grow in the soil of our hearts, and one day blossom and set fruit and finally drop it in a world so sorely in need of Him.

my alleged lawn

LOL!

NC red clay will do that to you. I love the stuff, though. Especially when it's full of mica. Grows great potatoes.

So, if I root deep enough I can become a potato or a tobacco. (Somehow I don't think that's the point of your lesson.)

Just kidding, MD. Excellent lesson. Thx.

“May God grow in the soil of our hearts, and one day blossom and set fruit and finally drop it in a world so sorely in need of Him.”

Amen...and AMEN!

PS. My hubby will be teaching RCIA too. May God grant you both HIS wisdom and fruitfulness in that work.

authoritatively derived from humus, earth, soil.

As is "human", IIRC -- which should tell us something! ;-)

What a beautiful post. Thank you.

I can’t see your picture — :( — but I just came in from mowing about 4 acres, so I’ve communed with nature this morning. And I have a scratchy throat to show for my efforts. It’s that Goldenrod, I think. A beautiful harbinger of fall, but hard on the allergies.

Life is short
and will soon be past
Only what’s done for Christ
will last.

I love that. Thank you.

LOL

One of my fantasies is to get a one-bottom plow for my tractor and maybe a rototiller and to plant some ‘taters.

Then again, another of my fantasies is to distill my own whiskey. I’m standing in the need of prayer ...

Prayer for the Conversion of England

By

Father Mark

on September 11, 2010 5:45 AM |

The forthcoming Apostolic Visit of Our Holy Father to the United Kingdom invites us to pray boldly for the conversion of England: the return of Mary's Dowry to obedience to Peter. I cannot help but think of all those souls, beginning with the English Martyrs, who suffered and prayed for this intention: Blessed Dominic of the Mother of God Barbieri, C.P., Venerable Father Ignatius of Saint Paul Spencer, C.P., Mother Mary of Saint Peter (Adèle) Garnier of Tyburn, Father Benedict Williamson, O.SS.S., Mother Mary Potter, and so many others.

Click on the link if you cannot see the picture.

O BLESSED VIRGIN MARY,
Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother,
look down in mercy upon England thy "Dowry"
and upon us all who greatly hope and trust in thee.
By thee it was that Jesus our Saviour and our hope was given unto the world;
and He has given thee to us that we might hope still more.
Plead for us thy children,
whom thou didst receive and accept at the foot of the Cross,
O sorrowful Mother.
Intercede for our separated brethren,
that with us in the one true fold
they may be united to the supreme Shepherd, the Vicar of thy Son.
Pray for us all, dear Mother,
that by faith fruitful in good works
we may all deserve to see and praise God,
together with thee, in our heavenly home. Amen.

Nicholas Patrick Stephen Cardinal Wiseman (1802-1865)

A Prayer For Employment

God, our Father, I turn to you seeking your divine help and guidance as I look for suitable employment.
I need your wisdom to guide my footsteps along the right path, and to lead me to find the proper things to say and do in this quest. I wish to use the gifts and talents you have given me, but I need the opportunity to do so with gainful employment.
Do not abandon me, dear Father, in this search, but rather grant me this favor I seek so that I may return to you with praise and thanksgiving for your gracious assistance.
Grant this through Christ, our Lord.
Amen

"Bless, 0 Lord of the centuries and the millennia, the daily work by which men and women provide bread for themselves and their loved ones. We also offer to your fatherly hands the toil and sacrifices associated with work, in union with your Son Jesus Christ, who redeemed human work from the yoke of sin and restored it to its original dignity. - Pope John Paul II

I think you will enjoy this story.

A woman was divorced and found herself struggling with an increasingly rebellious teenage daughter. It all came to a head late one night when the police called her to pick up her daughter who’d been arrested for drunk driving. The two of them didn’t speak on the way home or next day either, till mom broke the tension by giving her daughter a small, gift-wrapped package. The girl opened it with an air of indifference and found inside a small rock. “Well, that’s cute, Mom. What is it?”

“Read the card, dear.” As the girl did so, tears began to trickle down her cheeks, and she gave her mom a hug as the card fell to the floor. On the card her mother had written: “This rock is more than 200 million years old. That’s how long it’ll take before I give up on you.”

+ + +

Good stuff.

YEAH! Rock of Ages. Ages and ages. And for ever holding each one precious.

Friends in the Lord:

I apologize for my silence, for my failure to bump the thread. Thanks to ‘Salvation’ for giving it a periodic kick.

There are times when, hard as this may be to believe, even I run out of words. I think of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and the lines “for sinners here// the silent Word is pleading.” Yeah, well I’m not so sure about the relationship between my words and The Word, but sometimes the silence sure comes over me.

This is when theology becomes a kind of nervous tic, a twiddling of the thumbs, when one feels like a lead balloon whose tether has snapped and one sinks slowly into what ...

Maybe the “valley of deep darkness” as the bloodless modern translations have it — “the valley of the shadow of death”?

Maybe so. But if so, then, while I will fret over the verbal block (which can only be a mercy to those around me!) still, I will fear no evil.

My sweet Lord has walked this valley, blazing like a torch, scattering foes like the Boulder in Indiana Jones would scatter ten-pins. Then like a pre-adolescent athlete in a cosmic game of Capture the flag, sparkling and shining as children can do, he tags Adam’s hand, and all the prisoners are set free — and he leads captivity captive into bliss.

My! It’s dark in here! But I think maybe in the distance I see a faint glow.

When darkness comes, let us continue to hope. As MLK Jr. said — the blacker the night, the brighter the shining of the stars.

In the meantime, lift the foot, swing it forward, plant it. Lather, rinse, repeat. God sees our steps even if we don’t.

Amen! ;-)

One of those country music performers who can’t really sing did a song a couple of years ago:

If you’re going through hell, keep on going
Don’t look back; if you’re scared, don’t show it
You might get out before the Devil even knows you’re there.

It doesn’t rhyme, either.

God bless you, Mad Dawg.

May God quickly restore and refresh you! (A purely selfish prayer regrettably -- your silence is hard on the rest of us!)

“valley of deep darkness” as the bloodless modern translations have it

BTW, I did track down something on this (since it irks me so much). I found an article on Bible translation by David Daiches (the literary critic) on the Commentary site (cost me $5 too -- and I lost my access key or whatever they call it when my old computer went). He said that, while the Masoretic text vocalizes the tsadee-lamed-mem-vav-tav of the Hebrew as tsal-mavet, "shadow of death" (as I believe the Septuagint too has it), the NAB translators believe it should be read as tsalmut, "darkness."

Tsadee-lamed-mem, is, of course a legitimate Hebrew root, as in tselem, "image" in Genesis. Modern Hebrew knows no tsalmut, and I don't have whatever the Hebrew equivalent of the OED is. Daiches didn't say (IIRC, he didn't know) on what basis the NAB came to its decision.

Anyway, that's as far as I got. So far. ;-)

Litany of Humility

Closing Prayer

Prayer for the Conversion of England