Prayer to Obtain Favors

"Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen."--It is piously believed that whoever recites the above prayer fifteen times a day from the feast of St. Andrew (November 30th) until Christmas will obtain what is asked.

If you're reading this for the first time and it's already past November 30th (likely since I'm posting this very late), you can still join in the prayer on whatever day this is for you. It's not strictly necessary to make up the days you missed, but it's up to you if you want to. I've given this prayer to many people even after the "start date," and God has still been very generous with them!

I've been doing this every year for several years now. Until the first year I did this, I had never had the experience of persevering in prayer--not even for the nine short days of a novena!

The first year, I didn't ask for something too hard. I didn't want to be disappointed if God "didn't come through." The second year, I got a bit bolder and asked for something a little tougher, figuring that if nothing else I would learn that God is up to any challenge. Both of those years, I sort of got what I prayed for, but in unexpected ways.

The third year, I noticed that the prayer asks God to "grant my desires," PLURAL, not singular. So I gave Him several requests that year, and last year I gave Him the whole rundown of my wants and needs. Did I get everything I asked for? Nope. (Duh!) But wow! did He answer a lot of that stuff with Yes! So many blessings in my life since last Christmas!

So believe me, He's getting a big long list again this year!

Fr. Vakoc's First Words

"Goodbye." "Hi." "Mom." "Thank You, God."--Fr. H. Timothy Vakoc, October 26, 2006

Those were Father's first words since May 24, 2004, when he was injured in a roadside bomb blast and fell into a coma in Iraq after celebrating Mass on his 12th anniversary as a priest. The full story today at this Catholic News Agency link: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=8021.

Praise God, Father is responsive and beginning to make progress. It'll be a long road yet.

NOT Happy About the Election

This from Penitens this morning [http://penitens.blogspot.com/2006/11/not-happy-about-election.html]:

Not happy about the election?

Do everything without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine like lights in the world, as you hold on to the word of life, so that my boast for the day of Christ may be that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (from today's first reading - Philippians 2:12-18)

I am definately feeling like I need to get my life in order pronto. And not just to be prepared for whatever evil is coming down the pike, but to act effectively against it.

Tears

I’m sorry I was away from the blog for so long. I’ve been struggling with topics that are too close in some ways. I have needed to give it all more thought.

It’s the same struggle we all share, to face ourselves and acknowledge the horror of owning sin and its repercussions--not only the sins of others that affect us in various ways, but most especially our own personal sins that sear us from the inside out and seep out from us like poisoned water.

There is no hope until we cry out for help to the One Who loves us, the Only One Who can save us. We must reach out for His Arm, stretched out to draw us back from destruction. Then we can submit in amazement and gratitude to purification. We can resolve to return love for Love, to follow after our Lord. There is no one else we can turn to. Only Him.

A friend of mine posed several intriguing questions to me that I couldn’t begin to answer without doing at least a little bit of research, so that I could understand the issues involved. Her interest is developing in a different direction than mine. But we are in the same rut in the road as regards coming to terms with personal identity and with feeling dissociated or disconnected.

I am 47 years old, and since my last post, prompted by my friend’s search to understand and to grow spiritually, I have begun to understand my own life better. Things that happened in my life when I was only 6 or 7 years old are still affecting me today, forty years later. And understanding these connections has been critical to my spiritual growth.

Reflecting on my past has been painful because I don’t like having to own up to my sins and faults in the first place, let alone their consequences. But it has been most helpful to understand where they started and the weaknesses that feed them. Since the “age of reason” I have been burdened with misplaced feelings of shame and false guilt. Now, freed of the oppression of that falsity, I freely admit that I am blameworthy and I freely repent of my sins and I freely resolve to do penance and become holier!

The odd thing is, I don’t actually feel guilty now that I really know that I am guilty. Can you understand how this surprises me? I had read of great penitent saints, who wept continually because of their sins. Somehow I had imagined that “weeping in sorrow” meant they felt overwhelmed by shame, and I wondered why they would still feel ashamed since they had confessed their sins.

But I understand now that they wept in sorrow, but they didn’t weep in shame. I understand because I can’t stop crying lately.

Tears of sorrow are not for shame or guilt over sins that have been obliterated in the Furnace of God’s Love through the sacraments. They are the tears of sadness over the waste of years spent trying to please and comfort myself instead of turning to God. They are tears of frustration over engrained vices and long-standing habits of sin getting in my way now that I want to do better. They are the tears of regret over the devastation caused to the lives of not only myself but so many others by my fruitless efforts, useless projects, and wasted opportunities. They are tears of longing to truly see and know and love God, tears of desire to please Him, to draw close to Him. They are the tears of a helpless, hurting child reaching for her Father's safe and comforting arms. They are tears of relief and gratitude and joy at being rescued, of being loved, of being His.

In the meantime, as I struggle to connect my distant past to my present life, I’ve been coming across all sorts of interesting things that are helping me break out of the shadowy underbrush and into the light of the clearing. Some of these--Mass readings, bits of homilies, song lyrics, Scripture study, blog posts, prayers and many little serendipities--I will share with you in the next several weeks as I reflect more on them.

I hope one day to be tearless forever and my only cries to be of joy! Pray for us, Saints of Heaven!

May the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace, and may perpetual light shine upon them! Pray for us, Holy Souls!

Re: Angels

I discovered this in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

329 St. Augustine says: "'Angel' is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is 'spirit'; if you seek the name of their office, it is 'angel': from what they are, 'spirit', from what they do, 'angel.'"

I stand corrected regarding my original idea of "angelic nature" in the previous post. It would be better said that a creature with a spiritual nature is a spirit.

Just Human Nature

My friend, Lady Fett, was speculating on her blog (http://ladyfettscantina.blogspot.com) whether it would be possible for a human to have more than one nature. Since I spent all my "blogging time" today composing a comment, I thought I would simply copy it here to my own blog:

It wouldn't be possible for us to have two natures, because we're actually created with a single nature. If we had two natures, we wouldn't be human creatures, we would be something else. If you have a human nature, you are a human man or woman. A creature with an angelic nature is an angel. A creature with a wolf nature is a wolf. What we are is what we are created as.

Jesus can have two natures because He is a Divine Person with a divine nature from all eternity, Who then entered into time and took upon Himself a created human nature (body and soul) at His conception.

Personal identity is different than our nature. Our identities are so complex that we can't even completely know ourselves--there are just too many things hidden from our awareness and understanding. Only God can know us as we really are.

I'm just guessing, but it's more likely that someone could have a secondary identity, not a secondary nature. I don't think it needs to be considered a drawback. If one has taken on elements of an animal identity, the perceived beauty and strength of that animal will still be emulated by a human person.

A simple example: Imagine a duck egg is "orphaned" and placed with a broody hen. The duckling will imprint on the hen when it hatches, and line up with the chicks behind her. It has a duck nature (that is, it was created to be a duck), so it IS a duck. We could say it has a secondary identity as a chicken, because it thinks it's a chicken. But sooner or later, that duck is going to follow its true nature and swim--at which point it will begin to own its true identity as well, even if for a while it "thinks" of itself as a chicken that floats.

So say a human person has imprinted to or identified as a dog, or bear, or eagle. That would be a secondary identity, second to the primary human identity even when the animal identity seems to be stronger or dominant. A human person will do things that an animal cannot do. Just like a duck will do things a chicken cannot do.

A secondary identity would only be a problem if it is acted out in inappropriate ways: A duck trying to prove it's a chicken by fighting for a place in the pecking order is going to get raggedy pretty fast . . . chickens draw blood. I think here of those poor souls who suffer with gender identification issues, and how they are wounded by their struggle to be what they are not. They try to insist they have a right to their place, and fault the chickens for their pecking.

The Incorrupt Heart of St. John Vianney

I found a link to this CNS article at the Spirit Daily web site (for the full article, go to http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0605753.htm):

Thousands visit Long Island church to see sainted priest's heart

By Lena Pennino
Catholic News Service

MERRICK, N.Y. (CNS) -- More than 5,000 people entered Cure of Ars Church in Merrick Oct. 7-9 to pray before St. John Vianney's heart, and the pastor expected thousands more by Oct. 11, when the incorrupt relic of the sainted 19th-century French priest would end its visit and be taken to Boston.

St. John (Jean-Marie Baptiste) Vianney, who died in 1859, is widely known to Catholics as the Cure (parish priest) of Ars. He won over the hearts of his villagers in France by visiting with them, teaching them about God and reconciling people to the Lord in the confessional.

This was the first time that his heart has been brought to the United States. It is usually kept in the basilica in Ars near the incorrupt -- miraculously undecayed -- body of the saint. Pilgrims who wanted to see the relic waited in a long line leading up to the church entrance. After kneeling before the heart in prayer, many stayed to go to confession. In his life St. John Vianney often heard confessions for 16 to 18 hours a day.

I didn't know until I read this that St. John Vianney's body was incorrupt. How interesting that his heart is apparently kept in a separate reliquary near--not in--his body. And what a great priveledge that the relic could be brought to our own shores for veneration! It's a marvelous sign given to us of God's intention to fully restore us in both body and soul.

My own physical heart, like the hearts of many billions descended from Adam, will very probably rot in a grave along with the rest of my body. My spiritual heart is corrupt, in continuous need of repentance and conversion--in which circumstance I am thoroughly grateful for the loving assistance of the Cure's brother priests in the confessional.

[I praise You, Lord, and thank You for Your priests and for Your saints. Please, my God, grant many blessings and favors to all Your priests, but especially those who have served You by their ministry to my loved ones and to me. Protect them, perfect them, and bring them to heaven, where they will be both priests and saints!]

Re-Grafted

I haven't posted for quite a while. Sorry about that . . . while I was exploring the blogisphere and poking into interesting crannies, I wasn't watching where I was going and managed to fall off the edge of the earth. Had to haul myself back up. Fortunately, there was this Living Vine I could cling to. He re-established me as a branch and gave me a long drink of Water, so I'm feeling much better now.

I'll post again soon, I promise.

Prayer Request

Please pray for my aunt and godmother, Barbara V. in Minnesota, whose breast cancer has returned.

He Takes It So Personally

In a very "animated" and far-ranging conversation with my nephew a couple of nights ago--we both get over-excited trying to explain what we want to say--he asked me "Isn't there supposed to be a big war at the end of the world?" I told him yes: and that soon after Our Lord would come, that all the dead whether good or bad would be resurrected, that He would call the good to Himself to separate them from the bad forever. We talked a little about that separation of "sheep" from "goats" and the criteria Our Lord will use.

I told my nephew that Jesus means it when He says that whatever we do--or fail to do--"to the least of My bretheren," we do to Him. I pointed out that when Saul met Jesus after the Ascension, the Lord didn't ask why "My followers" or "the Christians" or "My disciples" were the focus of Saul's murderous attentions. He asked Saul, "Why are you persecuting Me?" Oh, He means it, alright!

From there the conversation with my nephew veered off onto other topics, but this line of thought has sort of stayed in the back of my mind since then. I've been thinking of Christians the world over suffering terrible persecutions even as I compose this. Baptised Christians, grafted to the True Vine, suffering because they belong to Him. Their enemies persecute none other than Christ Himself.

I've been thinking of how great saints have searched for the Face of Christ in every person they met, and given service even to foul and abusive patients (St. Francis of Assisi, I think), and even kissed lepers (St. Francis again). I thought of St. Camillus and how he overcame his own foul and abusive impulses to serve the sick and dying with such tenderness. And I thought about Mother Teresa and her Sisters of Charity serving the destitute dying and AIDS sufferers, serving Jesus in each one of them, recognising the image of God in every human soul. They have been priveledged to serve Christ Himself.

This is probably on my mind because I'm bothered by my own selfishness. It's so easy to turn a blind eye and go my merry own way. Thing is, I've been praying to St. Odelia for spiritual sight, but I'm not liking all that I see so far. I'm discovering that spiritual insights aren't necessarily consoling. Sometimes they're hard and gritty. Sometimes they reveal a boil that has to be lanced. If I just go on as I have in the past, there's a chance I won't be rubbing shoulders with sheep. I'm going to have to make some concrete plans to intentionally practice specific Works of Corporal and Spiritual Mercy, until being merciful is habitual.

I have often wondered what it might have been like to be there at our Lord's Passion. We are there with Him mystically whenever we offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, witnessing the miracle of transubstantiation at the hands of His priest, offering our lives with His, interceding for the needs of others. We are sent out to bring Him to the world. It occurs to me that--because we are His Members and we truly serve Him, Our Lord Himself, whenever we offer service to our fellows--that we are present at His Passion in our daily lives, if we make the effort to see and serve His little ones!

We are the women weeping over His suffering. We are Veronica wiping the sweat and blood from His Face. We are Simon lifting His Cross to our shoulders. We wait at His Feet along with Our Mother. We are Joseph and Nicodemus offering Him a burial place, annointing His Body with precious oils, wrapping His Body in linen. It really is Jesus Whom we serve! We really are there!