In Honor of Memorial Day

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918), Canadian Army

Memorial Day weekend, the un-official start of summer, and a day that is filled with picnics, parties and travel. The last day of what was a 3-day and is fast tuning into a 4-day weekend, And while many communities do their part to honor their sons & daughters who gave the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country it saddens me that the meaning behind the day seems to be getting lost.

I myself will be picnicking with friends and doing a little bit of traveling. But I will also be attending a Mass on Monday and praying the Office of the Dead for all those who so valiantly gave their lives so that I may enjoy the freedoms that I do. It is my hope that you to will do something to honor them.

Happy Memorial Day!

Have fun, be safe, and please rememer the real reason for the day!

Peace to All!

Pearls...

"One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own."

~ John O'Donohue (1956-2008)

And another gift is the Grace to realize that sometimes discouragement, especially from someone you love, is doing the same thing!

Come Holy Spirit

John 14:26-27
The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name--he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.

The Third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is one that I understand the least, but appreciate the most.


As Jesus said, the Father will send the Advocate to teach us everything and remind us of what He told us. What an awesome gift!

Problem is, sometimes the Holy Spirit works so subtly, so quietly, so mysteriously, that if I do not listen attentively and lovingly, with my whole heart, soul and mind, I will never hear the Spirit speak to me, and if I can’t hear the Spirit, the Spirit cannot work through me.

The Holy Spirit lights the fire for God in our hearts. Let us pray that we can be aware of the workings of the Spirit in our lives, and be thankful for this amazing gift of the loving and merciful God, who sent the Sprit to dwell in us.

Come, Holy Spirit, and fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your divine love. Send forth your spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. O God, who by the light of the Holy Spirit instructed the hearts of the faithful, grant, that by the same Spirit we may be truly wise and ever rejoice in his consolation. We ask this through Christ our lord. Amen.

Thank You BXVI!

On his way to Portugal while speaking to reporters, the Holy Father made the following comment,

"The greatest persecution of the church doesn't come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church," the pontiff said. "The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice."

 While I agree that the media, and many others have jumped on the "anti-Catholic" bandwagon in recent months, the one issue I have always had is that is seemed that the "blame game" was even being played by the Vatican.(Remember, back in 2002, when the "scandal" broke here in the States, it was an "American problem!")

My prayers have been answered!
Let the healing begin!!

The Power of Prayer

It is only at the end of this world that we shall realize how much the destinies of persons and nations have been shaped, not so much by the external actions of powerful men and by events that seem inevitable, but by the quiet, silent, irresistible prayer of persons the world will never know.

Anthony de Mello, SJ

The power of prayer is indeed a miraculous thing. And now with the technology of the Internet, it is possible to solicit prayers from all over the world, which is exactly what I am doing with this post.
Someone very dear to me, we will call her "M.", who had battled breast cancer about 18 months ago, and was in remission, just found out that the cancer is back, this time with a vengeance and in her liver and bones. The prognosis is “fair” at best. Right now, she has opted to fight this disease. I have posted to the right, the prayer of St. Peregrine, for those suffering from cancer. I humbly ask that anyone who visits my blog, please take a moment and pray for her.

Thank you and God Bless!

Pearls...

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being....
Correction does much, but encouragement does more."

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Eternal rest grant unto him, O, Lord...

Requiescat in pace

USMC Sgt. Frank J. A. World, of Tonawanda, NY, was killed in action in Afghanistan on Thursday April 1, 2010.  He leaves a wife and 2 small children.  My thoughts and prayers go out to his family & friends.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O, Lord

and let perpetual light shine upon him.

May he rest in peace.

Semper Fi

This is the day that the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad !

Christ has Risen!

Alleluia! 

But Mary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the body of Jesus had been. And they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken my Lord, and I don't know where they laid him." When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus there, but did not know it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?" She thought it was the gardener and said to him, "Sir, if you carried him away, tell me where you laid him, and I will take him." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni," which means Teacher. Jesus said to her, "Stop holding on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and tell them, 'I am going to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" Mary of Magdala went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord," and what he told her.

John 20: 11-18

May the blessings of our Risen Lord be with you and your famiily !

Happy Easter!

In the Tomb

This year the Triduum has taken on a new meaning for me. It is a grace I have received from my participation in the 19th Annotation. For the past few weeks, I have been using the Passion accounts from all of the Gospels in my prayer time. For an hour (or sometimes more) per day, I have been praying and meditating with these passages using a technique called the “application of the senses” in which I fully enter into the stories in which I am reading, seeing, hearing, touching smelling and tasting everything, as if I am truly present. I have, with the grace and help of God, been able to “be” with Jesus and his disciples as the events of His passion have unfolded.


It has not been an easy few days. Reliving the betrayal and abandonment of Jesus by his friends, has brought up a lot of my own “stuff”. Betrayal and abandonment are things I would not wish on my worst enemy, let alone my “best friend”, and I fully understand how Jesus must have felt. I would much rather deal with physical pain than with the emotional pain caused by such acts. For me, the betrayal and abandonment of a friend was far worse that any physical pain I have ever suffered, and while the gaping hole left in my heart and life by this experience has been healed through prayer and by the grace of God, there are still twinges of pain when I am reminded of the happy times that I had spent with my friend. And this pain, I believe, will never fully go away. It is something I will carry with me for the rest of my days. It is there, in the form of doubt, when I am about to share something of myself with another. It is there as a constant reminder that the unconditional love that I seek is something that can only be given to me by God and God alone.

As I sat in Good Friday services yesterday afternoon, and at the Tenebrae service I attended last night, thinking about what Jesus did for me- the suffering, the humiliation, the pain, the abandonment, I was overcome with grief. I wanted to be angry. I wanted to know how the people that I loved could betray and abandon me. I wanted to know how, people who claimed to be Jesus’ friends and followers could have handed Him over to such a horrific fate. And then I heard Jesus’ words so clearly, that I almost thought He was sitting right next to me,

“Father forgive them: they do not know what they are doing.”

and suddenly things became crystal clear.

As a human being, I am a sinful creature. My sinfulness comes out of my thinking that I am in control of things, and that my will is what is important. What Jesus showed me on the cross is that it is not, has never been and never will be my will that brings me peace and salvation. Only God, through the life, death and resurrection of His son, can do that for me. The catch is I have to let Him!

As I prayed before the cross last night, I offered all of my feelings of anger, loss, grief, abandonment and betrayal there at the foot of the cross. Today, as I “sit in the tomb”, I can, with God’s help, finally let go of all of the negative emotion that has brought me into my one personal “hell” the past few months. I can offer my suffering in solidarity with that of Jesus’ suffering. I can take my human brokenness and leave it there in the tomb, so as to make room in my heart for the awesome gift that Jesus has in store for me,
new life in Him!

I found this beautiful image of Jesus being laid in the tomb at www.sistermarygrace.artspan.com.  through  a "google image" search.  There is much more artwork available.  I urge you to take a moment and check out the website, and maybe even buy something.  I know I will!

Judas, what were you thinking?!

As we enter into Holy Week, my prayer time is bringing me deeper and deeper into the Passion, and I find many of my thoughts, outside of my prayer time, are of Judas.

In today’s Gospel, Mary anoints Jesus with some very expensive oil. Oil that Judas believes could be better used by selling it and giving the money to the poor. That is not really a bad thing, is it? 300 days wages was a lot of money. It still is, if you really think about it. If I work 5 days a week, for a whole year without a day off, it is only 260 days. Would I have felt the same way Judas did? Would I have seen what Mary did as wasteful?

I remember watching a program on the History Channel, I believe, that speculated on who Judas Iscariot really was. I do not remember all of the details, and unfortunately do not even remember the title of the program, yet I do remember that it brought up some very interesting ideas. The basic premise was that Jesus and Judas had been life-long friends, and that their families had a long connection. It went on to speculate that Jesus and Judas were “revolutionaries” who fought against the Roman occupation during what we refer to as the “lost years” in the life of Jesus. The speculation continues with the idea that Judas, discouraged by the fact that they had not eradicated their Roman oppressors, continued to believe in, and follow that path that Jesus now took in His public ministry. Judas is named as one of the 12, and we can only assume that for the years of His public ministry, Judas was working side by side with Jesus in preaching the Good News.

So, I can’t help but to think, might it have been this episode from today’s Gospel that was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” for Judas? Were things not happening fast enough for him? Did he have a misunderstanding of what Jesus was actually trying to teach? Was Judas looking for a prize? Was his understanding of “kingdom” that of one of wealth and power and not one of love and service? What causes someone to betray someone that they love?

I don’t have to imagine how Jesus must have felt. I have been there. The betrayal of a friend, in my experience, is like having a piece of yourself ripped from within you. It leaves a jagged, gaping hole in your heart and in your spirit. The darkness can consume you if you let it. I know, because I almost did. And I remember praying, no pleading with God, to take this pain away, and make everything “better” again.

God did not take my suffering away from me, just as He did not take the suffering away from Jesus. Jesus suffered the ultimate betrayal; He lost His life because of a friend. In the end though, Jesus not only gained new life, but He gained it for me, too. Jesus took the ultimate betrayal and turned it into the ultimate act of love.

Can I do the same?