NOVENA for the ELECTION -- 54 or 56 days (you choose!) ECUMENICAL

Vanitas vanitatum | 9/1/2012 | Vanity

[Mad Dawg]

Clearly we need to seek, to beg God's help in the coming election. I invite all to join in a "Novena" -- a LONG one -- with just such an intention.

If you start on 9/11 (!) and pray for 56 days, you end the day before election day.
If you start on 9/13 and pray for 54 days... you do the math. :-)

I am asking us to consider ADDING something to our daily prayers. I know you all are busy and I suspect many of you spend a good deal of time in prayer anyway. I do not seek to bind burdens on anyone's back. Though prayer sometimes involves teeth-gritting, that should not be the main theme! The main themes should always be hope, joy, and gratitude, IMHO.

But the prayer of a just man avails much, and we are justified in Jesus! So let us pray! Please consider adding ONE thing -- an act of charity and mercy, a little extra time in prayer and/or with Scripture, maybe a little fast -- or a even little extra physical exercise! But add just one thing to the Glory of our loving God and with a petition that He do HIS will in the coming election.

[Boring technical stuff for non-Catholics. The term "novena" refers to a period of prayer. It derives from, so to speak, riffing on the nine days of prayer between the Ascension and the Pentecost. Hence the name, which pretty much means "niney-thing" -- Mad Dawg translation.

[ Not so long ago, in our tradition, somebody was instructed to pray a novena of 6 novenas -- 3 of petition and 3 of thanksgiving. Good stuff ensued. Thus arose the 54 day novena. With JPII's change of the Rosary, a figure divisible by four is tidier for those who pray the Rosary. Hence my suggestion of 56 days.]

[Mad Dawg]

Thank you, jg. I babble and trust that God will give the meaning. I DO struggle, meditate, and ponder ‘n all, but the drive or tic or compulsion is in some sense exogenous. I’m just sitting here minding my own business, so to speak, and God says, “Look! Aren’t you attracted?”

Before I ever went caving I used to think it was the LAST thing on earth I’d want to do. But I found that once I was in the cave, I wanted to see just around just one more corner, just one more. It was hard to tear myself away!

The pagans make earth feminine — indeed female, while one can see in the cultural milieu in which God disclosed himself to our fathers that they definitely worshipped a “sky god”: he dwells “in heaven;” he comes in the storm; When he “touches down”(as in Psalm 18) the language is like describing a lightning storm over a volcano.

But despite the predominance of masculine and heavenly language and thought and perhaps through the mystery of the Incarnation, there is a chthonic side to our religious experience. Elijah may have issued from the cave to encounter the still, small, voice, but he waited, he was prepared in the cave, though that cave was on a mountain side.

We follow, or hope to, where he leads. He seems to lead both inwards and outwards, all at once. Our call is only to follow and to sing as we go.

[Mad Dawg]

The Flight into Egypt, take 2

`A wandering Aramean was my father; and he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, few in number; ... (Deu 26:5 RSV)

A wandering Jacob leaves the land of promise and follows his sons into Egypt. They sojourn there few in number,and there they become "a nation, great, mighty, and populous." But Pharaoh treated them harshly, afflicted them, and laid upon them hard bondage, so

Then [they] cried to the LORD the God of [their] fathers, and the LORD heard [their] voice, and saw [their] affliction, [their] toil, and [their] oppression; and the LORD brought them out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror, with signs and wonders;...

Israel's bondage in Egypt follows on an almost fratricide averted by travelling slave traders. But once Israel's children return to the land of promise there are, to say the least, ups and downs. The age of judges draws to a close with the atrocity of Jephthah's daughter, and the glories of David and Solomon fade quickly and are lost in a cloud of idolatrous strife. After the exile Israel and Judah are used mostly, it seems, as doormats by passing armies until our Lord is born in a Roman tributary kingdom.

And so his family flees from the tyrant, from one infant killer to the land where Moses barely survived another.

Yet I hear, from Psalm 31, the verse blessing God for showing his Love in a fortified city.

Some wandered in desert wastes looking for a city in which they might dwell. They cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He heard them and rescued them from their distress.
(Cf. the lovely Psalm 107)

Our Lady herself may be likened to the Holy City in which God made his dwelling place. The Holy Family were the perfect society whose primary intention was to serve the Lord. And we, the many members of his Body, carry the city with us in our hearts.

There may be troubles in the days to come. Our walls may shudder at the enemy's blows and mining. But we have no temporary city, for in us, as we are in it, is the City of God. In the eyes of the world we may be fugitives. But while we are sojourners in one way, in another we are always at home.

Blessed be the Lord, who has shown us his love in a strong city, a city of unity of the Spirit.

[Mad Dawg]

Ooops. Ping to above.

[SumProVita]

There may be troubles in the days to come. Our walls may shudder at the enemy’s blows and mining. But we have no temporary city, for in us, as we are in it, is the City of God.

____________________________________

I have the feeling that we may all remember this in the days ahead. MD, you do have a gift for sharing these thought.

“Almighty Father, you made Mary Immaculate so she would become a fitting sanctuary for your Son. Keep me holy so that I may always welcome the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.” ...Father Romanus Cessario, O.P.

Then we will INDEED have a holy city!

[Mad Dawg]

Let me be a holy stone in the walls of the holy city. My glory will be to protect the children of God and to hold up his mighty ramparts.

This will sound stupid and vain: You're right. I do have a gift. Pray that I may use it to the benefit of the Kingdom and w/o imperiling my soul.

I can hang back no longer, but I am vain and fearful. Please pray that I may give back to God what he has given to me by using it to make his Love known.

I'm serious. I need prayers. It's time to rock 'n roll and I'm tied up in knots.

[Mad Dawg]

I owe somebody two meditations.

(3) The Loss of the Child Jesus in the Temple. (Luke 2:43-45)

Because Mary was kept free of the stain of sin, we may conclude that it is no sin to have a sense of the absence of God. And we may profit from Mary's example. When she had that sense, she went to the Temple. We may further assume she and Joseph did not find Jesus the minute they arrived back at the Temple. They had to look around at least a little.

It is, I think, a grace, a sign of God's favor that we become aware of his absence. It is a great and miraculous kindness of God to give us a place where we know we can find him. We Catholics are assured that we will meet him in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

This “sorrow”, then, has a moral message that is almost trite: If you seek God, seek him in his house, where he has promised to be. Maybe you won't feel his presence right away. But he is there. Don't stop looking for him!

(4) Mary Meets Jesus on the Way to Calvary.

Unless we are very sick or very wicked, we all want the best for our children. And we also want them to BE the very best. For Mary, these desires and hopes were met and granted in a miraculous way. Her sinless understanding of who and what her son was must have grown and deepened as she watched him grow and followed him on his way to Jerusalem and the dreadful hill.

So I think we must conclude that, while she was tested, while she was in agony, still her faith and other graces must have led her to think that in the torment she shared with her son he was working out a great mystery before her and within her. In their fall, our first parents brought brokenness and pain to all the generations of mankind. In the agony, suffering, and death of our Lord all that brokenness and pain was summed up, soaked up as a sponge soaks up blood, and offered for the saving of the world.

In our Lord and Lady we see that the way of salvation is by no means free of pain. On the contrary, the way leads us into deeper pain until we too come to the point of transmutation where pain is turned to bliss. It is not that she felt no sorrow, no dread of loss. It is that in her sinless faith she saw that it was only through that sorrow and dread, through the loss we all have chosen in some way, that God leads us to himself.

[PatriotGirl827]

“I can hang back no longer, but I am vain and fearful. Please pray that I may give back to God what he has given to me by using it to make his Love known.

I’m serious. I need prayers. It’s time to rock ‘n roll and I’m tied up in knots.”

Wow - this is EXACTLY what I have been going through for months now, but I couldn’t put my finger on it, until now.

There is a lot of suffering going on in my household (especially DH with cancer), so the Lord is giving us opportunities to offer it all up and we, hopefully, will be strengthened by all of this.

Thank you, and I will continue to pray for all of us.

[Mad Dawg]

(5)Jesus dies on the Cross

Fr. Brian Mulcahy, OP, Prior Provincial of the Eastern Province of the Order of Preachers, noticed that in Gibson's movie, when our Lord dies, Mary mouths, “Amen.”

---

Look at this line from today's (Monday of the Second Week of Advent) reading in the Office of Readings:

From the end of the earth we hear songs:
“Splendor to the Just One!”
But I said, “I am wasted, wasted away. Woe is me!
The traitors betray: with treachery have the traitors betrayed!

This is the year of faith. Faith and "Amen" go together.

There is the Love and the Power of God. These we see with the eyes of faith, given by God's grace.

There is our own wasting away and the treachery of traitors. Even to see these is sometimes a gift. Some, not so gifted, see treachery as sincerity and traitors as rescuers. Hearts which are hollow appear whole and strong to those who see only the outside.

When all we see is the uncanny stillness of death and all we feel is our own empty heart, God will move to fill our hearts with himself and to make flowers spring up where there was only stones and grit.

Exodus 14:14 -- The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still. These are words for the broken-hearted, for the spiritually aesthenic. It is HIS might, HIS life on which we rely, and HIS hope in which we hope.

[Mad Dawg]

Ooops again!

Again ping to above.

[Mad Dawg]

Please keep praying.

I am fine,but I have to take a couple of days off for medical junque.

[SumProVita]

Am hanging in there...though by a thread sometimes.
Today is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She has been referred to by the Pope as the STAR of the new evangelization. The conversion of the Americas has become an urgent necessity.

May your intercession dear Mother, Virgin of Guadalupe, be powerful indeed!

[Mad Dawg]

Amen!

[SumProVita]

I know that several of you are already praying much....BUT....this novena might just be of interest.

It is a novena to the Holy Spirit!

The novena in honor of the Holy Spirit is the oldest of all novenas since it was first made at the direction of Our Lord Himself when He sent His apostles back to Jerusalem to await the coming of the Holy Spirit on the first Pentecost. It is still the only novena officially prescribed by the Church. Addressed to the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, it is a powerful plea for the light and strength and love so sorely needed by every Christian.

It begins today.

http://www.ewtn.com/devotionals/pentecost/seven.htm

:-)

[Mad Dawg]

please pass the word. I am too busy coughing my guts out to write. Stay faithful. God has the con.

[SumProVita]

Let’s hold up our brother, Mad Dawg, in prayer today. It sounds as if he has caught that nasty bronchial virus...and we can continue with our prayers. Thank you, Dear Lord, for helping us so.

Loving Father, help me to accept the full spectrum of your revelation in all its truths, loves, and wonders from the infrared of its origin to the ultraviolet of its destiny. (Fr. Lawrence Donohoo)

[johngrace]

Yes! I will!

[Running On Empty]

I am praying for you

I’m staying with this thread, and “forsaking all others.”

God bless.

[Mad Dawg]

Bless you — as always!

I intend to saddle up tomorrow and staart writing again. It’s funny how as soon as I make a pledge, a ‘rule’, a commitment to write, a lassitude almost crushes me.

These mysteries are so ...’hard’ isn’t exactly right. How about “challenging”? Mary has been so good not just to me but even to non-believing friends of mine. I am coming to love her more and more. So I don’t want to be glib and shallow or in any way false when I write of her sorrows.

But .. well, I shall write tomorrow, well or poorly it’s not for me to say.

[SumProVita]

This seems even more appropriate this morning, particularly in light of the sad events in Connecticut (we stand steadfast in prayer for all there).

From Vultus Christi:

And so do we find ourselves, in these last days of Advent, faced with the most bitter irony of praying the Stabat Mater Dolorosa. The Mother of God, and hundreds of thousands of mothers with her, never leave their station at the Cross, where the blood of an incalculable number of lambs is mingled with the tears of their hearts and with the Blood of the One Lamb that, alone, can wrest the world from the powers of darkness.

Plunged in grief the mother stood,
Weeping where the crimsoned wood
Held on high her dying son.

Through her soul, whose mourning low,
Told how grievous was her woe,
Sorrow like a sword had gone.

Oh! how sad, how sorrow laden,
Stood the meek and blessed maiden,
God’s true mother undefiled.

Trembling, weeping, whelmed in woes,
Witnessing the dying throes
Of her own immortal child.

Who is he who would not weep,
Could he know what anguish deep,
Pierced the mother of the Lord?

Who from sorrow could refrain,
Gazing on that mother’s pain,
Weeping with her son adored?

She beheld the torments sore,
He for his own people bore,
Bowed beneath that scourging dread.

She beheld her only-born,
Death struck, utterly forlorn,
When his parting spirit fled.

Come, O mother, love’s sweet spring,
Let me share thy sorrowing,
Let my tears unite with thine.

Let my heart be all on fire,
Still to seek with fond desire
Christ, my God, my love divine.

Holy mother, this impart,
Deeply print upon my heart,
All the wounds my saviour bore.

Let me share his pains with thee,
Who so tenderly for me
Deigned his sacred blood to pour.

Let our tears in mingling tide
Flow for Jesus crucified,
Till life cease within my breast.

By the cross to take my station,
Sharing thy sweet lamentation,
This is my most fond request.

Holiest of the virgin train,
Do not thou my prayer disdain;
Come and share thy griefs with me.

Let me trace his sufferings o’er;
Bear the very death he bore,
When they nailed him to the tree:

Tell his wounds within my heart,
In his chalice take my part,
All for love of thy dear Son.

Wrapt in flames of love divine,
Keep me still, O mother mine,
When the judgement day draws on.

Lord, when these my days are done,
Let thy mother lead me on
To the palm of victory.

When this mortal body dies,
May my soul to heaven uprise,
Glorified and blest for thee. Amen.

[Mad Dawg]

Thank you. Amen.