Well – it’s been nine months since I posted in this blog.  Nine months that included some very dry times as well as a rebirth.  During this roller coast ride, I have experienced my Dark Night of the Soul (On the Feast of St. Joseph) and have come to some incredible awakenings related to my faith.  I have been blessed with the news of my first grandchild; due on June 18^th.  My father continues to decline mentally but has pulled through some medical issues and is still with us.  I have learned some lessons that I hope and pray will stay with me until I meet my Maker and have seen that some of the lessons I thought I had learned were in total error and in great need of fixing.  So, this leads me to possibly beginning to post on a regular basis some of the things that the Lord has put on my soul as I continue my journey on my path to my salvation.

It’s 5:25am right now & I have been up since 3:30 praying and reading and a few things I read have led me to post what my eyes have been opened to. – As before, the book Divine Intimacy has triggered lots of contemplation as to where I am and where I am going.  Yesterday’s chapter was on the Seven Sorrows of Mary.  Think about these things from the first paragraph -“Yes O Blessed Mother”, says St. Bernard, “a sword has truly pierced your soul.  It could penetrate your Son’s flesh only by passing through your soul.  And after Jesus had died, the cruel lance which opened His side did not reach His soul, but it did pierce yours.  His soul was no longer in His body, but yours could not be detached from it.”  And later on-“She not only accepted, she offered, - And then the challenge from the Stabat Mater; “O Mother…make me feel the depth of your sorrow, so that I may weep with you.  May I bear in my heart the wounds of Christ; make me share in His Passion and become inebriated by the Cross and Blood of your Son.”  WOW, what a challenge!  Then in today’s chapter, Love of the Cross, I was shown this-“the Lord Himself must make us suffer, not only in our body, but also in our soul, because we are so covered with rust, so full of miseries that our total purification is not possible unless God Himself intervenes directly.  To plunge us into passive suffering is, therefore, one of His greatest works of mercy, a proof of His exceeding love.” – I stated often in the old posts that this is really, really tough but I am starting to see why!  It is through our suffering that we become stronger; it is through our anxiety and hurt that we will one day realize true joy.

I was recently told in Spiritual direction (thank you Father Brian) that it is not only “Not about me” but also not about those that I mistakenly thought that I took on suffering for, but is only to be about Christ.  I have spent too much time worrying about the salvation of those I love.  I should have been accepting it all as God’s way of purifying them.  I tried to help and that may have interfered with God’s plan to build them up.  I t was pointed out that I must be there for those I love, but they must walk towards their God and my place is not to try and push them along, and Lord knows, not to try and carry them. – I am such a silly fool sometimes.

Saint Gregory Nazianzen makes everything very clear in this morning’s Office of Readings (OOR).  “we must sacrifice ourselves to God, each day and in everything we do, accepting all that happens to us for the sake of the Word, imitating his passion by our sufferings, and honoring his blood by shedding our own.  We must be ready to be crucified.”  Accepting all for God, not for ourselves, not for those we love, but for God and God alone.  That was my huge error.  This is what needs correction in my life.  Thursday night in DI, this was in the Colloquy (prayer), “I realize that my crosses have been permitted and willed by You, my God, to teach me to TRUST in You in spite of everything.” - Who was I to try and lighten or remove crosses from those I love.  Who am I to get in the way of Grace poured out for those who have been blessed with these sufferings?

Again thank you Father for pointing out that all must be for the glory of God.  My prayer is that I may truly get out of the way of the Holy Spirit.  As I enter into Holy Week, I pray that all of us feel the gentle touch of our heavenly Father and if that gentle touch takes the form of a slap, that we realize that it is out of unconditional love that our God corrects our walk and places us firmly in the middle of the path to Holiness and Salvation.