a prayer

Lord, enlighten us with your love and empower us with your strength, so that we can express our thoughts and goals with compassion and dignity. Help us to become leaders focused on the betterment of all. Guide and protect us in these changing and challenging times, within our families, country, and world. And let us remember that Mary is with us, keeping watch over us always as a loving mother who guides us to Christ and an understanding of your merciful ways. Amen
The Christophers

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our boat

O Maker of the mighty deep, whereon our vessels fare, above our life’s adventure keep thy faithful watch and care. In thee we trust, what e’er befall, the sea is great, our boats are small. When homeward bound we gladly turn, O bring us safely there, where harbor lights of friendship burn and peace is in the air. We trust in thee, what e’er befall; thy sea is great, our boats are small.
Van Dyke

wayfaring stranger

I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger, traveling through this world below. There’s no sickness, no toil or danger, in that bright land to which I go. I’m going there to see my father and all my loved ones, who’ve gone on. I’m just going over Jordan, I’m just going over home. I know dark clouds will gather ’round me, I know my way is hard and steep. Yet beauteous fields arise before me, where God’s redeemed their vigils keep. I’m going there to see my mother, she said she’d meet me when I come. So I’m just going over Jordan, I’m just going over home. I’m just going over Jordan, I’m just going over home.
Sung by Hillbilly Thomists
watch and listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SCAlP4ceiw

for our mothers

Dear Lord, please bless our mothers in a way that only you can. Be with them in every moment and in every way. Hold each and every one of them in the palm of your hand, blessing them in abundance with your strength, your joy, and your undying love. In Jesus name we pray. Amen

to soar

In order to reach the ideal life of the soul, I believe we must live in the realm of the supernatural and be persuaded that God dwells in our innermost being, and go to everything with him. Then nothing can be trivial, no matter how commonplace in itself, for we do not live in those things, but soar above them.
Elizabeth of the Trinity

precious

Not content to live only one short human life on this earth, Christ longs to live again and again in every human life: to love and serve his Father and all peoples in and through countess other human hearts until the end of time. Christ is everywhere born again and again. No matter how difficult or insignificant a human life seems to be, it is precious to God as Christ is precious to God. The whole of the infinite love of the Father is concentrated on that person at every moment. “You are my beloved Son.” In each one in whom Jesus lives, he is loved infinitely by the Father, loved as who he is: God’s only Son. My only rest in this chaotic world is Christ in me, trusting the Father.
Caryll Houselander

little lamb

Little Lamb who made thee, Dost thou know who made thee? Gave thee life and bid thee feed. By the stream and o’er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice! Little Lamb who made thee, Dost thou know who made thee? Little Lamb I’ll tell thee, Little Lamb I’ll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb. He is meek and he is mild, He became a little child: a child and thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee.
William Blake

divine mercy

Before I come in judgment I open wide the door of my mercy. If a soul refuses to pass through the door of my mercy it must pass through the door of my justice. I often attend upon the dying and through entreaties obtain for them trust in God’s mercy, and I implore God for an abundance of divine grace, which is always victorious. God’s mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly, it seems as if everything were lost, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such a
power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [at that stage] no longer react to external things. Oh, how beyond comprehension is God’s mercy! But – horror! – there are also souls who voluntarily and consciously reject and scorn this grace! Although a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility of returning to God. But sometimes, the obduracy in souls is so great that consciously they choose hell; they [thus] make useless all the prayers that other souls offer to God for them and even the efforts of God Himself.
Jesus to Faustina, written in her diary

resurrection

This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad, alleluia! Easter is pure gift from God. And it is a gift that keeps on giving. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is still available to us. God never stops giving, and we should never stop accepting his love. Jesus invites us to intimacy with him. Don’t settle for where you are at. God has so much more for you. No matter how old you are or how sick you are, there is more Jesus has for you spiritually speaking. Do not become complacent. Do not let your spiritual life become routine. Resurrection means new life. We have been with Christ after spending the last forty days dying with Christ. God has been at work in us helping us to die to anything that is not of God. So let us go forth in the life and strength of the risen Christ. ‘Let go and let God.’ As Jesus told St. Paul “My grace is all you need.” I’m learning to put more on God. I find he is quite capable!! It really is his vineyard not mine. I only have to do what God tells me to do. I am not the Messiah, he is. And I find that taking more time for quiet and prayer and even for just ‘smelling the roses,’ things get done and get done better. Rejoice with Jesus and in Jesus. Let the new life Jesus gives you be your strength. Be grateful, be prayerful, and let the light of Christ shine through you to all you meet. Amen, Alleluia!
Rev. Charles Reinbold
Alleluia!!!: Watch and listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk-uingYwIM

kindness

I grew up in a very Protestant area. The majority of the populace belonged to a Lutheran sect that was at best wary and at worse downright bigoted when it came to Catholics. There was no parochial school attached to our little mission church so we few Catholic kids merged with our Lutheran neighbors on buses, bikes or on foot each day to make our way to the public school. Most days you couldn’t tell a Catholic from a Lutheran, but when Lent came along the distinctions became noticeable. The Catholics were recognizable by the black smudge of ashes on their foreheads. The Catholic kids generally didn’t eat candy during the week but instead hoarded it away for consumption on Sunday which didn’t count as a day of Lent. The Catholics could not eat meat on Friday during Lent and here’s where egg salad sandwiches take on significance.
Two mothers were assigned to provide a lunch for our classroom parties throughout the year. These parties were always on a Friday afternoon when our eagerness to be free for the weekend pretty much obliterated any possibility of learning. Since kids are always hungry, the lunches were pretty substantial—-not just a snack. It seems there was always a party or two during Lent and typically the room mothers would have been of the Lutheran faith. Even though their church did not require abstinence from meat on Fridays, they never forgot that the little Catholic kids would need special consideration and they went to the extra effort of providing egg salad for us so that we would not be left out when the plate of sandwiches was passed. It was a kindness that I have never forgotten.
Pat Nyquist, OSB