DURING THE NIGHT prayer

I couldn't sleep last night and began thinking about what would be the most inclusive prayer I could say.

Sweet LOVE, bless all the people You ever made and ever will make.
Fill our minds with the experience of Your LOVE, so we will be able to say sorry for our lack of love of each other,
make us open to receive Your forgiveness which is the only gift You can give us
to help us to start again after the awful mess we have made of all the other wonderful gifts You have given us.

Wonder if that makes sense

INSPIRATION

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank

Just found this on a website accessed by Stumble Upon.

Fits very well what I believe - now all I have to do is to DO IT.

Hail Mary

When I say the second part of the Hail Mary, instead of the usual wording, I say:

Pray WITH us sinners.

This makes me feel closer to our blessed mother's humanity.
The image I have of her is that she kneels on the top step of the altar, with her back to us, leading us by her example, towards Jesus, her son and our brother.

As for other conventional images, I really only want to see her portrayed as 'Mother of God', with Jesus in the picture too, in front of her and her in the background.
Having found my own maternity very satisfying, I find the emphasis of her virginity is sometimes a bit over the top for my taste.

My main thoughts about her is that she was the Great Lover, taker of risks, leaper into the abyss of the future trusting totally in LOVE. Pray with me, mother, that I may gain a shadow of your courage.
Amen

ADDENDUM - August 10 2010

Another year has passed - well, what is my prayer for today?
LOVE, help me to make my own life peaceful, tranquil, but passionate at the same time.
And help me to be a source of Your Light to both myself and others. (in other words, help me to think positively, even about things that seem utterly negative, knowing that 'for those who love LOVE, all things work together for the GOOD'.(Romans 8:28)

BACK AGAIN - Plus 5 months later!

No idea what caused the sudden break - blogs are like that, if writing isn't as much part of the daily routine as cleaning the teeth, there is a tendency to forget and to let time flow pass.
Thanks for the events of the last months - including the ones I didn't like - there was the report about abuse in institutions, and the Dublin diocese report is expected this week.
We need to think about foregiveness - must wirte some more about that - its a topic I feel strongly about.
Change all our hearts so this kind of thing will be dealt with differently in the future.

atch-choooo...

Don't come too close or you might catch my cold.
So how to pray through a streaming cold?
Of course the ideal prayer would be something like:

I say:
Sweet LOVE, teach me through this heavy cold that I am not in total charge of my life - that some things like colds come upon me unexpectedly, but always for a good purpose from Your perspective. So, taking into account that my head is all stuffed up, You will need to shout at me for me to hear what it is You are saying.

Of course, I do have an idea - it could be something like:

Jesus LOVE says:
Slow down and take it easy and give Me some of your time. Take some rest, be gentle with your poor body - you know you have been pushing it to its limits.
Be still.
Come aside and rest. There will be plenty of time for work when the cold has healed.

And I think I also hear You say: I love you my dear Child of the stuffy nose.

Thanks LOVE of my life
Amen

Lent is coming

Just thinking about Lent and the three recommendations:
Pray, Fast, Give Alms.
Give us courage to go against ourselves, to offer up our discomfort, and to be steadfast in our efforts over the six week period.
Amen

Feb 08 2009

Sometimes I just need to be still and listen and to know that I am beloved - instead of bombarding You with words, dear LOVE
Amen

What to Pray for TODAY?

WISDOM - I think that's what we all need - including Obama!
What help would wisdom be? Well I think it is wisdom that helps us to make good decisions - decisions that are LOVE based, for all the people.
I'm thinking of the doctor's maxim: First do no harm.
Wisdom would also give us courage to decide against things that are for our convenience in cases where they are for someone else's harm.
Finally wisdom would help us to know when we don't know, and would help us to see when we should leave the future to You, and not think that we can control it all the time. Sometimes we can, but not ALL the time.
So sweet LOVE, loads and loads more WISDOM for all of us, especially for those with the power to influence the future of many.
Amen

Over a MONTH...

I'm not doing well at this blog. It seemed such a simple challenge - just a few lines per day - or even every few days....
Today's thought comes from a conversation I had with a chap from Belgium at the LIGHTWAVE exhibition in the Science Gallery.

It's a corollary to the idea of St John of the Cross: If you want love, put love, and then you'll find love.
And if you find love, you'll be inclined to put more love, and to find even more love.

We are changed by every encounter, and the change in us is a challenge to other people to act differently, simply because we don't respond any more in the same old negative way.

December 17 - C is getting nearer

I've been referring to the approaching festival as 'the C word', and trying not to think about it.
But today, is the day the liturgy heats up, and the Divine Office gets into a special mode for the next days, starting today.

Need to keep thinking about the references to LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS. Am just hanging in there.

Almighty One, be light in my darkness, even a tiny matchflame ....

Quote from ZENIT

I like this bit I found in the ZENIT daily newsletter. (Subscribe here )

We are moving very fast over such phenomena as communications. However the Golden Rule still applies, whether a Pope speaks or one of us in defense of our faith. The words of Christ: "Do not be afraid or prepare what you will say as I will give you such words that they cannot gainsay you." If we all did more praying than saying, the world would be a far happier place.

Petronella Cockin

I agree wholeheartedly!

WAITING

Problem with the idea of WAITING is that it pulls me into the future, and distracts me from the wonder of this moment, so full of LOVE - that love that 'shines on us like the sun' and rises over us like the dawn.

So how do I wait and rejoice at the same time?

Happy ADVENT Everyone!

Just spent a 'day off' with the parish, thinking about Advent. We looked at reading, sang hymns, discussed ideas, and made each other laugh and smile.
In the end, I have only one prayer - may we live out what we talked about. One quote I brought home:
If you see someone without a smile on their face, give them one of yours, you never know how far it will go.
I was reminded of St John of God, (or was it John of the Cross) who said: If you want love, put love and then you'll find love.

CHRIST THE KING

Bless all the people this Sunday, especially all the priests, and help them to speak from the heart about You as King of our lives. This isn’t an easy topic since our only experience of royalty these days is of constitutional monarchies who have very little actual power, even if they have still some influence.

This is where I think my idea of calling You ‘Almighty’ instead of ‘Lord’ comes into its own. Almighty still means ALL MIGHTY –

all powerful,

the one who can do anything, and everything.

The One who is boss,

in charge,

who makes the decisions,

most of all You are the One who makes things happen.

So our dear Jesus is Almighty Jesus,
and our Holy Spirit, is Almighty Holy Spirit,
and Our Heavenly Parent is Almighty Motherly Father.

The implication of this is that we can stop fussing, stop worrying, and let You run the world, and run our lives within it.
We can know that You who are LOVE, love each and every one of us – no one is excluded from Your love.

Even those whose behaviour prevents them from experiencing Your love, are still loved by You, and You are still searching to their last breath for a way to smuggle them into heaven – saying as You always say for all of us: ‘Motherly Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’
(Image above taken from webpage at http://www.ctkterrytown.parishesonline.com/scripts/HostedSites/Org.asp?ID=4652)

The Liberties

Just thinking of my visit to the Francis St Parish Centre and my contact with people of the Liberties. Bless them all, in whatever way they need. Thinking of a young man being treated for cancer in St James Hospital. There must be dozens of others like him. give them the hope they need to live on, instead of 'dying in advance of death'. Give them courage - you have to be terrified to have courage.
Amen

THANKSGIVING

Seems to me we owe a big THANKS to LOVE for the outcome of the US election. Of course, maybe it won't turn out the way we expect - the motto is 'in LOVE we trust', not in OBAMA we trust. But if he is as loving as he seems - and I am cynical enought to wonder about this, him being a politician and all that, if he really is that LOVING then we really are in for big changes.

GOD - LOVE and pronouns

Not sure if I wrote about this before.
I have a theory that as God who is LOVE is a unique being, it is grammatically inaccurate to use a pronoun as a short way to save a letter or two (he = two letters as opposed to God which has three or Lord which has four).

Then there is a second reason for not using a pronoun - this applies to English. We only have three choices: he, she, or it. In my mind none of these fits the Almighty, who is a Spirit (not a thing) and who as a spirit doesn't have gender.

What this means for me is I now aim to call the Almighty 'LOVE' whenever the bible says 'God'. I find people seems to understand better what I am talking about when I use a word from their vocabulary (LOVE) and not one from mine (God).
And to be more accurate, and avoid genderizing, I aim to say 'the Almighty', rather than 'the Lord' - again 'the Lord' means nothing in modern society.

This can be a bit clumsy at times, but I love the nuances of meaning that often emerge.
Know that the Lord is God. He made us and we are his – his people, the sheep of his flock.(Ps 100) becomes:
Know that the Almighty is LOVE. LOVE made us, and we are LOVE'S - LOVE'S people, the sheep of LOVE'S flock.
Wow what a challenge I find that - to be one of the LOVE people!

Saw WYB last night, about a loving and happy couple who don't agree with aborting babies who might have spina bifida or cerebral palsy.
Sweet LOVE, you shone through the eyes of this couple, and each of them said in so many words, "things are the way they are, you just have to make the best of it."
Help me to make that happen in my life too.
And especially help parents who when offered death for their child, choose life instead. It's about having the courage to face future pain, not knowing how you will survive, and afraid that you won't.

Thanks giving Oct 2008

Tonight we had a farewell Mass for Fr Ben who is leaving St Dominic's to go to Montenotte in Cork.

He gave a lovely homily about being thankful to God for all the goodness he had experienced from the community during both of his ten year stints here.

Most of all, he made it all so simple - Love God and do your best, and know that God loves us no matter that we aren't perfect yet.

After Mass, we had tea and buns and lots of chat with people many of whom I hadn't seen for ages.I love my parish. Such lovely people and I got a chance to ring the bell during Mass, though afterwards Sr Blaithnid told me that bells were gone since Vatican II. Imagine - and I never noticed. Hope they bring them back