Category Archives: Jesus

The Oasis of His Heart

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Jesus and Saint Teresa at Holy Communion

St. Francis Borgia, S.J. with St. Teresa of Avila, O.C.D.; art by José Segrelles (1956)

 

We who walk in the desert of violence, wars, and changes that bewilder and confuse us need an oasis in which  to rest and renew ourselves. Mass is the oasis to which the Good Samaritan brings us each day. Every day Christ  invites us to the oasis of his heart to be refreshed there by the Wine of his compassion and love.

Love is not an emotion and not a state. It is a Person — it is God himself. He is the food I receive in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. I need him daily because I am a sinner and weak.
True, I am a saved sinner; but one who realizes only too well the words of Christ, “Without me, you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5) I need him, the living Bread, to love through me.

I need to participate in the daily Sacrifice of the Mass because I am in love with God. I am in love with Jesus Christ. My soul seeks union with God. It cannot rest until it finds him.

Mass is a rendezvous with Christ. Passionately in love with my God, I become one with him at the Eucharistic table.

Daily Mass is a plunging into the inexplicable, incredible mystery of love. It is a reality more real than the air I breathe, than the life I live throughout the day.

What can I bring to the world but him who has given himself to me?

~ A meditation by Catherine De Hueck Doherty

❤

 

My lover belongs to me and I to him…
~ Sg 2:16

 

Jesus Sacred Heart9

God’s heart is our only true resting place, the oasis to which he calls us ❤ Beloved Lord Jesus, draw us near and near to your Most Sacred Heart! Amen!

 

Tears in The Garden

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Jesus in the Garden artist unknown

Christ in The Garden, by unknown artist

My Beloved,
May I console Your heart?
Sadness and weariness are so palpable in this encounter.
Is it necessary that You go through all those moments of suffering and anguish for me?
The anguish of Your precious heart, O Lord, breaks me.
It’s happening all over again…

You are only loving and giving.
How can this be happening?
I don’t want to fall asleep my Jesus.
I want to stay awake, to console Your precious heart, like the angel from heaven did in those dark days.

Would You allow me to be in Your presence now, Lord?
I know You need to pray to your Father.
For his strength and courage will be upon You.
But Lord, I pray, allow me to remain with You now. In silence and in communion.
Your tears are overflowing and my garden is wet from those precious tears…
Your tears are cleansing and healing everything.

O Beloved Jesus,
Thank You for loving me with such infinite and unconditional love.
I can’t express in words how much gratitude I feel for You saving me.

Beloved, let us pray together.
Let us stay in this silent union of love and trust,
That all is in the Father’s heart.

I stay awake.
Let us be together.
Let us pray together, my Beloved.


~ My Personal Reflection

 

 

 

 

Love Song

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Jesus and the beloved disciple2

St. John The Beloved Disciple resting in the Heart of Jesus ~ By unknown artist

Long ago, an ordinary man called John laid his head on the breast of Christ, and listened to the heartbeats of the Lord. Who can guess what that man felt as he heard the beat of that mighty heart? None of us will ever be in his place, but all of us can hear, if we listen, the song of love God sings to us. If we meditate on the most holy sacrament of the Eucharist, we will hear, not only his heartbeats, but our own hearts beating in unison with his. We will be united with our Lord and our God.

God’s heart is our only true resting place, the oasis to which he calls us. The key to his heart is identification with all his little ones, a deep love that requires so great an enlargement of heart that we cannot even aspire to it unless God shows us the way.

Let us pray for that enlargement of heart.

“I give you a new commandment: love one another; just as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this love you have for one another, everyone will know you are my disciples.” – John 13:34-35 

A Meditation by Catherine Doherty, Madonna House Apostolate

 

As I Lay Me Down to Sleep

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This is a little adaptation of the beautiful song by Sophie B. Hawkins. Every time I listen to it, it makes me think of My Beloved….Jesus I love you!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do…

 

Jesus you are mine art by Yongsung Kim

You are mine, art by Yong-Sung Kim

 

It felt like spring time on this February morning
In a courtyard birds were singing Your praise
I’m still recalling things You said to make me feel alright
I carried them with me today
Now

As I lay me down to sleep
This I pray
That You will hold me dear
Though I’m far away
I’ll whisper your Name into the sky
And I will wake up happy

I wonder why I feel so high
Though I am not above the sorrow
Heavy hearted
Till You call my name
And it sounds like church bells
Or the whistle of a train
On a summer evening
I’ll run to meet You
Barefoot, barely breathing

As I lay me down to sleep 
This I pray
That You will hold me dear
Though I’m far away
I’ll whisper Your name into the sky 
And I will wake up happy

Oh, Beloved
As I lay me down to sleep
This I pray
That You will hold me dear
Though I’m far away
I’ll whisper Your name into the sky 
And I will wake up happy

It’s not too near for me
Like a flower I need the rain
Though it’s not clear to me
Every season has it’s change
And I will see You
When the sun comes out again

As I lay me down to sleep 
This I pray
That You will hold me dear
Though I’m far away
I’ll whisper Your name into the sky 
And I will wake up happy

I wonder why 

when the sun comes out again 
when the sun comes out again…

I will wake up happy 

This I pray

 

Your Heart…The Mirror of God

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Heart by Janice VanCronkhite

Heart, art by Janice Van Cronkhite

Seeing God does not necessarily have to do with visions or extravagant gifts of grace. It can be a simple and quiet consciousness of God’s presence and reality. It can be an unshakable confidence in him who gives you a solid grounding.
To see God can also be an insight and conviction that your whole life rests in the hands of God, and everything that happens is a message from him. Or it can be a deep insight into the human longing for an infinite love which only God can fill.
The pure heart can see God already in this life, since he reigns in our midst. God wants to be mirrored in your heart. But if the mirror is stained and soiled, it can’t reflect God’s image. And so it is not God’s fault if you don’t see him.
If you want to see and experience God, you must let your heart become what it was meant to be from the beginning: a clear and pure mirror for the one who is love and who loves all that is.
To let your heart recover its originality, you must first discover and admit that you are an abyss crying out for God’s infinity, and then you must empty your heart of all the surrogates with which you have tried to fill it.

~ A Meditation by Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

 

Simplicity Serves Best

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Nativity ~ By unknown artist

Nativity ~ By unknown artist

To a Christian it is very simple to come into contact with God. God is not just the goal at the end of a long and hard journey. In Jesus Christ, God is the way itself. As soon as we take the first stumbling steps on this way, we are together with God. 
No demanding exercises in concentrating are needed, no heroic asceticism. The only thing needed is to genuinely love Jesus. Love entrusts itself to the beloved, opens itself to him or her, trusts him or her. If such a genuine love of Jesus fills our hearts, then everything else will follow.
Jesus is Immanuel: God with us. We don’t need a telescope to scout for God. God is near; he is our traveling companion. We need only let him take us by the hand. Since God has shown himself on the earth and has pitched his tent among us, he is “grab-able” to all.
It is not through profound speculation that we grow in our relationship with God, but through the unsophisticated faith of the heart, and the trust in what transcends human understanding. When we bow before the mystery that has come so close to us in Jesus, then he reveals himself most clearly. 

 

~ A Christmas meditation by Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

 

Christmas Within

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a child stand by Jesus crib

A manger filled with Love ~ Art by unknown artist

The mystery of Christmas is not a reality outside of you. It is realized only if it becomes a reality within you.
Mary and Joseph sought shelter. And the King of Kings  was satisfied with a poor stable and manger meant for cattle. Is there a shelter for him within you—he doesn’t ask for much—or are you so preoccupied with your own that there is no room for him?
If you let Jesus be born in you, you become a messenger of love. Then you will no longer do anything just for your own sake. Everything will be inspired by Love. If you continually make a home for him in your heart, he will continually become visible in and through you. As he is ceaselessly born of the Father, he will ceaselessly be born in you.
Do not think that you must have something big and magnificent to offer him. It is his presence that makes your poverty shine with divine light. He is most comfortable in the simple and unassuming, if only the door is opened to him.

~ A Christmas meditation by Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.

Eternity Born in Time

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The Nativity ~ Art by Bradi Barth

The Nativity ~ Art by Bradi Barth

Christ—the Word—is eternally begotten of the Father. “The Lord said to my Lord: You are my Son; this day I have begotten you.” (Entrance antiphon for Christmas, Mass at Midnight).
It happens outside of time, in the mystery of eternity. In this birth, God reveals his own blessedness. Continuously, he goes outside of himself, and he does this so completely that, in and through this, he gives birth to a Son who is just like him, just as great, just as divine as he is.
The Son is like the Father in everything, except in that he is the one who receives  everything and the Father the one who gives everything.  He is God in the manner of the Son, and the Father is God in the manner of the Father. God is not a monologue; God is dialogue. And the harmony between Father and the Son is so complete, so full of life, that it forms a Third in the communion. The Spirit is the spark of love that always jumps from the Father to the Son and from the Son to the Father.
That God has revealed himself to you, this is the great Christmas gift to you. This gift also contains an order of trust. You must bear witness to the true love that has become visible on earth, when the Son who is eternally begotten of the Father is born in time as well.

The birth of Jesus in Bethlehem is the birth given most attention at Christmas. But if you don’t see this birth in connection with the eternal birth of the Word from the Father, then you miss what is essential. Then all that is left is a little romantic mood-making: a sweet child who for a few moments may touch your heart, but who is really not allowed to seize your heart.
God’s Incarnation is the greatest mystery in Christianity, the most incomprehensible and unfathomable. How can the great God make himself so little? How can this vulnerable, crying baby be “my Lord and my God”?
It is precisely  this mystery that is the great stumbling block for non-Christians. But if you believe this, you have the solution to all the riddles and difficulties in the world.
Then you can no longer doubt that God loves his creation. That the Almighty God has become a little child, for our sake, is a definitive proof of the definitive victory of his love. To doubt that you are loved by God is only possible if you forget the manger.

~ A Christmas medidation by Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D.   

 Wishing you All a Merry and Blessed Christmas!

Celebrating Advent In The Proper Way

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Do you hear what I hear Art by Sandy Maudlin

‘Do you hear what I hear?’ Art by Sandy Maudlin

During Advent you may be looking forward to all the beautiful experiences of Christmas. But Advent is not meant as a waiting period for this. Rather, you are awaiting someone who will come closer to you than you are to yourself.
Advent is like a portal you have to walk through to enter the sanctuary of Christmas. The portal is flanked by two figures who guard the sanctuary and ask you why you want to enter, and at the same time teach you how to do it. Both figures are very dissimilar. One is big and strong, a man clothed in camels’ hair. But in spite of his size, this man wants only to be a voice calling out in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord.”
The other is a vulnerable woman expecting a child. She doesn’t cry out, she is silent, total attention to what is happening within her. The only thing she quietly whispers is: “I am the servant of the Lord.”
They both know who they are waiting for. They are not awaiting better times, or nicer experiences. They are waiting for God, and they know that nothing can hinder his arrival if they are open to receive him.
If you also know who you are waiting for, if you are sure about his arrival, then you are celebrating Advent in the proper way.

~ An Advent meditation By Wilfrid Stinissen, O.C.D. 

 

Conversations with my Beloved

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Art by Ilse Kleyn

Art by Ilse Kleyn

“Where are you, my God?”
I seek you all about me and you are not there and yet you seem to tell me: Here I am. Everywhere. Nowhere.

I never leave you, but you have to realize I use disguises. If you persist in seeking me under that disguise I used a month, a year, ago, you will be hurt and disappointed.
I change, and you must change with me, or be left alone, bereft, bewildered, lost.

“But why do you do it?” That you may know me better. You are my Chosen one who must discover me beneath a multitude of impermanent changes of attire and behavior.
I remain myself, absolute, infinity…and close as a lover’s kiss.

You have to learn to recognize me. It’s hard, I know.
You come running to me…arms outstretched to be enfolded by what I was to you when the season was different, and you were ardent and your heart bursting with untried love, your every gesture and word a lyric, your very speech a poem!
It was beautiful, but it was only the prelude. Now the flowers have seeded, the petals are all gone, the scent is blown away on the wind. And yet…

and yet, how beautiful this autumn is!
The prelude to our consummation by my death in you, and your resplendent life in me.

~ Selected Writings of Barbara Dent, O.C.D.S .