Happy New Year! 2017--On Being Resilient and Living with Hope

I just wrote a quote from Michael Jordan, the great basketball player that I found in a book on keeping a positive outlook in life, on the blog I write that is filled with just quotes. The more I read the quote the more I like it.....the more I want to share it.

So it goes.......

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot...and missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."   Michael Jordan-born in Brooklyn-achieved greatness in the NBA.

In the Bible, perseverance and being hopeful is rewarded by God. As Christians hope is essential to our faith.....as Christians we live in the glow of Christ victorious and that glow should emanate from us. Life is full of distractions, difficulties, and even trials, at times. But knowing Christ walks with us and Christ is near, is so important.  It's important to be resilient and to never give up hope.  St. Teresa of Avila, the great mystic, Spanish saint and Doctor of the Church would tell her nuns, "So many problems arise from imagining Jesus as far away, when He is really near." That is the truth, Teresa would know, she is a Doctor, we can trust her advice.

Happy New Year! May all your dreams come true! Amen.
NJA

Fr. Barron's Excellent Video on All Saints

The saints have greatly inspired me on my spiritual journey. I have a great devotion and love for many of the Carmelite saints such as St. Therese of Lisieux and St. Teresa of Avila. These were extraordinary women, in any time, and their love of God and willingness to do God's will, at all costs inspires me to persevere on the spiritual journey, through good times and bad.

These are trying times we are living through, though each age has had its challenges, the modern world is moving at such a fast pace, it's difficult to keep up, stay close to God and discern God's will at each moment. Without prayer, it would be totally impossible. With God all is possible.

St. Therese, the Little Flower, as she called herself loved Jesus in a mystical way. It was if he was standing next to her and she could sense it. On her profession day she sent out invitations to her wedding, she was "marrying" her Divine Spouse. St. Therese (as Fr. Barron notes about all the saints) is a friend to all who pray for her intercession or study her works. Many devotees have commented that they felt Therese was a friend to them, in some mystical way. Therese's little way of spiritual childhood recognizes that we are all in need of God's mercy and help, everyday of our lives. We all use poor judgment at times, we all could do better. To strive to be like Christ in the world, to be Christ to others is the goal of the spiritual life and yet it is so difficult. The saints provide us with a way to do it, to discern God's will through prayer. Recently, I had to make a difficult decision, in my heart I knew what God's will was, it was very clear to me. So clear I couldn't dismiss it. It went against what I wanted to do, it went against what made sense in the natural realm, but for some reason, God wanted me to do it God's way. I still don't know why, but I'm sure someday it might become clear, or perhaps it won't, this side of heaven. From that experience I learned that going against our wants and doing God's will, in all things, is not easy at all. The human will can be strong but I know God has my best interests in mind, I know that God loves me unconditionally and so I intend to do God's will, to say my prayers and to keep St. Teresa of Avila's words close to me, "So many problems come from imagining Jesus as far away, when he is really near." And of course, these words should never be far from the lips of a Christian, "Jesus, I trust in you."

May the Saints bless our efforts and bring us to holiness.

NJA

http://www.wordonfire.org/WOF-TV/Commentaries-New/Fr-Barron-comments-on-All-Saints-Day.aspx

This Is The Truth!

Today is the feast day of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and I couldn't let this feast day go by without writing something. I have always been fascinated with Edith's life story and who wouldn't be. She searched her whole life for truth, she became a great philosopher and teacher, so finding truth and the meaning of life, were especially important to her. She had the intelligence to grasp philosophical ideas and concepts that most of us would find challenging. Her searching brought her to Catholicism, to the "arms of Jesus" and to the Carmelite Order. She would eventually become a Carmelite nun and suffer a martyr's death in a gas chamber in Auschwitz, with her sister Rosa, in 1942. Edith Stein was highly intellectual and her intelligence and ability to reason, brought her to Christ, the greatest of truths.

Edith Stein was born in Breslau in 1891, the youngest of 11, as her family were celebrating Yom Kippur, the Feast of Atonement.  She had a Jewish upbringing, yet she would lose her faith as a teenager. She was an excellent student throughout her life. As an adult, she would study with the greatest German philosophers of her time, no small accomplishment for a women. 

At the University of Gottingen, she became the teaching assistant and pupil of Edmund Husserl, a well-known and respected philosopher. She met another philosopher while there, named Max Scheler, who introduced her to Catholicism. According to the Vatican website, "During this period she went to Frankfurt Cathedral and saw a woman with a shopping basket going in to kneel for a brief prayer. She wrote, ' This was something totally new to me. In the synagogues and Protestant Churches I had visited, people simply went to the services. Here, however, I saw someone coming straight from the busy marketplace into this empty church, as if she was going to have an intimate conversation. It was something I never forgot.' "

One evening she stayed at a friends' house and she picked up a copy of St. Teresa of Avila's autobiography, that was in their library. She couldn't put it down and read it throughout the night. In the morning, she declared to her friends, "This is the truth." Finding that truth would lead her to conversion. Edith Stein had found Jesus, ultimate truth. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." Once finding Jesus, there was no turning back for Edith, she devoted her life to serving Him. It is an inspiring story. 

When I get to Heaven, Edith Stein is one of the many saints, I'd like to have a conversation with. (I hope that's one of the perks of being in Heaven!) What a great woman saint! In my opinion, she should be the 4th women to receive the title Doctor of the Church. (There are only 3 women so far, to be given the title, Doctor of the Church). She wrote over 17 volumes. She was a genius and out of all the philosophies, ways of life, and ideals she could have embraced, she chose Jesus. It is what it is and it's remarkable. 

NJA

My longing for truth was a single prayer.  (E.S.)

One cannot desire freedom from the Cross, when one is especially chosen for the Cross.   (Edith Stein)

Jesus Is The Answer

I've been away and if you've noticed I haven't posted an entry lately, it means you read my blog, at least sometimes. Thanks, I appreciate that. I'm not sure how many people read my blog and that doesn't really matter to me. I'm writing because I want to prevent Alzheimer's Disease (no kidding), stir up my creativity and keep it alive and share my deep faith. It's all about having dreams, and trying to realize them. I have deep faith and dreams and I believe that I have an advantage in life because of my relationship with God, because I study and pray with God's word and receive Eucharist frequently. I also listen carefully to homilies and lectures. I learn a lot from them as well as from my religious/spiritual books and articles, that are never far from me (even when I travel I select reading material for trips). The glue that holds it all together is my trust in God. Trusting in God, with confidence and perseverance is crucial on the spiritual journey, as Scripture suggests.

Good luck to people who live without faith. I don't know how they do it. Living in this uncertain world with faith, is hard enough. It seems like natural disasters are happening more frequently, there have certainly been strong earthquakes of late, in different parts of the world. That makes people anxious. I called my cousin in Hawaii last night to let her know I was praying for her at Mass on Saturday evening and she said, "We prayed down that tsunami!" Before the cancellation of the tsunami alert, it was pretty tense on the Hawaiian Islands. As my cousin explained to me, all the low-lying areas near the water were evacuated. Talk about uncertainty. How do you get through a tsunami warning without prayer? No clue.

I found an old article that I saved written by a well known Carmelite priest titled, "The Saving Role of the Human Christ For St. Teresa" by Rev. Eamon Carroll. It's the kind of article I read every few years. I like to be reminded that we should continually have our focus "fixed on Jesus." I don't think we can hear or read that enough. I know it always helps me to keep things in perspective. This is an excerpt from the article.......

Christianity has lived on the conviction that there is no true Christian prayer without Christ.... Teresa learned from the master teacher, Jesus himself. It is another depth to Teresa's Christology that she saw the achievement of full human potential in union with Jesus Christ. We become most properly human beings when in the center of our very selves, Christ is enthroned , the human Jesus who is the very Son of God, the revelation of God's kindness to us in the power of the Spirit. 

And so during Lent and in the midst of so much uncertainty, which is part of the times we are living through,  it is best to keep our focus on Jesus, because Christ is the answer, along with prayer, to all anxieties and problems. Life without Christ is a barren desert, life with Christ is filled with hope and possibility. It says that over and over again in the Bible and in varied ways throughout the New Testament. And in the Hebrew Scriptures it says over and over again, that God is faithful and true. 

NJA

Trust in the Lord and the Lord will help you.  (Proverbs 20:22)