Thankful Thursday

Truth 4 the Journey hosts Thankful Thursdays again this week. So here is my list of “thankful things”. I offer them all to God.
1. I am thankful for retreats. I went on retreat with my husband this past weekend. It was a retreat for Catholic deacons and their wives. The theme was living the Paschal Mystery of Christ. On the very first evening, Fr. P. talked about taking time to spend with God. Time away from our everyday ordinary schedule and stresses. Time to spend in prayer with God. Time to remember that we need to make God the center of our lives. I have been struggling so much with that. My schedule is so full and I let the schedule rule my life. The retreat gave me the time to spend with God that I have been craving for a long time now. Thank you, Lord.
2. I am thankful for my job. I work as a parish secretary and there are a lot of stresses in this job, believe it or not. But there is so much good about it. The people I work with, the people I can help, the closeness I feel to Jesus when I am there. And this job is keeping our family afloat in these tough times. So I thank you, Lord, for leading me here.
3. I am thankful for my “blogging” friends. This is a new world for me but I have learned a lot and shared a lot with others. The inspiration I receive and hopefully give, the exchange of thoughts and ideas, the willingness to help the new girl on the “blog” (sorry), is really gratifying and, I must say, fun. It widens my horizons and helps me to grow, in my writing, in my faith, in my willingness to share and be open. It has really been a surprise for me that I enjoy it as much as I do. Of course I enjoy writing and I enjoy reading. And I especially enjoy writing about faith and God. So go figure.
4. I am thankful for chocolate. What can I say? I am a chocoholic. I am also going back on a diet. I will still have some chocolate, but, as they say, all good things in moderation.
5. I am thankful for the gift of life. My life has been difficult at times, but it has been blessed as well. I look at my family and friends and my church and I think of how grateful I am to be able to experience the love of family and friends. I look at sunsets and stars and I think of how grateful I am to be able to experience God’s creation. God gives us so many gifts. And I wonder, how can we not be thankful?

Check out Catholic Carnival

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Thoughts on Retreat

This past weekend my hubby and I went on a diaconate retreat. Here are some thoughts and graces from the weekend.
Time
On Friday night, the retreat master (Fr. P) talked about time – chronos and kairos. Chronos is time measured in minutes and hours - chronological time. Kairos is about qualitative time. It is about a moment in time, the time when God acts. God-time. We talked about needing to take time away with God. Refocus and center ourselves on the Lord of our life.
“Set your mind on God’s kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well.” Matthew 6:33
Prayer
Fr . P met Catherine de Hueck Doherty once and asked for advice on prayer. She told him "Go up to your room. Sit down and shut up. And listen." He said it was the best advice he ever got on prayer. I can see why. I love it. Sit down and shut up. That about says it.
Psalm 103:4
God delivers your life from your pit, surrounds you with love and compassion. I read this on Saturday and it stuck with me for the day. I prayed over it and meditated on it. And I thought of the times God has pulled me from the pit. And maybe even more meaningful to me, the times God sat with me in the pit. Just sat with me. And held me together.
Deacons
Deacons are wonderful people. No surprise that I would say that considering I am married to one. But deacons really are. They are called to serve. And you know that when you spend any amount of time with deacons. On a weekend like this, you see them serving each other and it can be quite moving to see. It is really grace.
So it is time now for me to stop blogging and time to pray. Or should I say, time to shut up and listen. Thank you Lord.

If I Only Knew

John 4:10 – If you knew the gift of God …

We say we know, but do we?
If I only knew the gift of God …
If I only knew how much God wants to give me …
If I only knew how much God loves me and how far He would go to prove that love …
If I only knew God's unconditional love that is not based on how good I am or what I have done for him lately ...
If I only knew Jesus and his compassion, …
If I only knew that by knowing Jesus, I know the Father, …
If I only knew the gentleness of the Holy Spirit, ...
If I only knew the gift of God, .... Then my life would be different. And my heart would be changed. And I would stop worrying about the little things and I would enjoy the peace and joy and hope that only God can give us.
If I only knew ...
But I do know .. So why don't I live like I know?

(inspired by Catholic Spiritual Direction post)

Thankful Thursday

I found this on this blog - Truth 4 the Journey. I knew I needed to join in because I have discovered in my own life, that if I remember to be grateful, I am better able to weather the dark storms of my life. In my ezine, - Prayerful Morsels - I usually include a section called "A Gratitude Journal" where subscribers can contribute to the Gratitude list. So here is my list of things that I want to thank God for today.

1. I am thankful for the gift of life, given to me by God. Sometimes I take it for granted but I don't want to do that any more. Seems like life is cheap these days and I want to help change that attitude. Like peace, it begins with me.
2. I am thankful for our country and our system of government. I am not happy about Obama being elected President, but I am impressed with how calm and cordial and respectful our transition of government is. And I will continue to pray that Obama has a conversion of heart and changes his beliefs about life issues, including abortion.
3. I am thankful for flu remedies. I am home with the flu and I do not know how I would make it through the day without honey-lemon drops, lemon tea, and cough medicine.
4. I am thankful for pets. We once had a yellow lab. We had him for 13 years and our 2 sons grew up with him. He was a wonderful dog, good with the boys, good watchdog, loyal and fun and loving. Everything you would want in a dog and more. The day he died was one of the saddest days for our family.
The other night we went to see Marley and Me with one of our sons and his wife. We sat and watched this wonderful movie and cried like babies at the end. A lot of memories came back as we watched the movie and I found myself missing our beloved pet all over again. We cannot have pets where we live or I probably would have gone off and bought one!
5. I am thankful that my husband is such a good cook. Now that he is "semi-retired," he does all of the cooking. I have never eaten so well. Unfortunately, the weight scales show that. But I cannot blame it all on my hubby's cooking. I have struggled with my weight most of my life. We are both going to start yet another diet soon. But he will still do all of the cooking, which will make it a little easier, for me anyway.

Catholic Carnival

The weekly Catholic Carnival is up with some great blog posts as usual. Check it out here.

Out of the Blue

Gifts and precious moments that come to us from Out of the Blue - Don't you love them?

1. Someone gave me a gift last week. She came to the parish office where I work and handed me a CD of Christian music. She said she thought of me when she listened to it and she wanted to give it to me. Out of the blue. No special reason. Just because. Music is such a precious gift. And she gave me another precious gift, too, whether she knew it or not. The gift of caring.

2. We spent the weekend with one of our sons. During Mass on Sunday, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t sitting alone at Mass for a change. My husband, a permanent deacon, is usually on the altar when we are home and my son lives a couple of hours away so we do not get the chance to go to church together very often. I thanked God for this gift and I was reminded to appreciate all these little moments that given to us. They can sneak up on you and then disappear if you aren’t aware.

3.I have been struggling so much recently with my prayer life. I need to be really disciplined with my prayer schedule when I am like this. I know this about myself but I have been procrastinating about making up a schedule. So I recently came upon this blog called Catholic Spiritual Direction, written by Father John Bartunek. Being a Catholic spiritual director myself, it caught my attention. And wouldn’t you know that one of the recent posts was about prayer and how we need to schedule our prayer time? Thank you, Lord, for confirming what I already knew but needed to hear.

3 of the Top Reasons I Pray for My Country

1. Pray for peace. We need peace. We need peace in our country and we need peace overseas. We need peace within our hearts too. Peace starts with us.
2. Pray for a healthy economy.
3. Pray for a conversion to a culture of Life. We need to pray for life. We need to take a stand for life. We need to start speaking out and start working for change and stop thinking others in the church will do it for us or the government will do it for us. While we waffle around and talk a good talk, babies are dying, euthanasia is being legalized and people are being murdered in our streets and our prisons. We live in a throw-away society and life seems to matter little.
The thing is, we won't have peace and we won't have a healthy economy until our hearts are changed about Life.
Mother Teresa said it better than I can - (thanks to A Catholic Mom in Hawaii)

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

"What is taking place in America is a war against the child. And if we accept that the mother can kill her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?"

"Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants."

The Lemonade Reward

Thanks goes to Evann for my Lemonade reward. My very first blog award! I am so excited. The Lemonade Award is given to 10 others who show good attitude (the good kind!) or gratitude.

Pass it on!

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2. Thriver's Toolbox

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5. Conversion Diary

6. Oblate Blog

7. Abiding

8. Ironic Catholic

9. Enola

10. Ordinary Grace

The Life of a Parish Secretary

A parish secretary is a unique kind of secretary. We do a lot of everything. We do the usual things of course. The filing and typing and reception duties and computer work. We often become “jack of all trades” and do bookkeeping as well as janitorial duties.
But then there are the church-related duties like ordering hosts for Mass and taking Mass intentions and writing announcements to be read at Mass and ordering vestments for the priests and planning funerals and writing church bulletins (which nobody reads, of course).
Not a typical job description for secretaries.
We are great listeners, as people tell us their life stories, automatically trusting us to be kind and forgiving because, after all, we work for the church. People tell us things they would never tell any other perfect stranger. We handle these stories with reverence and tender loving care and, of course, in strictest confidence. It is a privilege to be invited into someone’s life like that, a privilege we hold dear to our hearts.
We feel privileged to be able to work at a church, to think of God all day and talk about God all day and teach about God all day and witness about God all day ... to live and breathe God in our everyday lives ... to have opportunities to be Jesus for others.
The secretarial stuff - it is important. It is what we do to help the church run. But It is God – and our love of God - that brings us to work every day.

Catholic Carnival

Check out the Catholic Carnival this week. What a great job! Very creative with a Mardi Gras theme. Wonderful blog posts to read.

God-Incidence

I do not believe in coincidences. I call them God-incidences. When a God-incidence happens, I ask God, What am I to learn from this, Lord?
Last week I posted an entry on my survivor blog about the joy I feel when I drive my VW bug convertible. The next day, I picked up the book I have been reading, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch, and the chapter heading was – The Man in the Convertible. Sure enough, it was a short 2 page chapter about Randy riding in his convertible sometime after his cancer diagnosis and a co-worker saw him and saw the look of happiness and contentment on his face. It was a moment she never forgot because it gave her an understanding about living in the present moment.
I think the message for me is this: Each moment - no matter what our lives are like, no matter what pain we may be in - each moment carries the possibility of joy. We just need to be open to it. One moment at a time.

Come Lord Jesus

We all need reminders.
I once heard of this great idea about leaving one Christmas decoration out all year long. The idea is that it looks out of place so it gets your attention when you look at it. Then you are reminded to pray for Jesus to be born in your heart everyday, not just one day a year.

It has been several years since I last remembered to do this. I was reminded of it when I put away my decorations yesterday, so I kept out a favorite of mine - a mini nativity set.

Now when I see the nativity set, I will hopefully remember to pray: Come, Lord Jesus. Be born in my heart today and everyday.

3 Reasons I Love to Go to Mass

Here are 3 of the reasons I go to Mass. What are yours?

1. The Eucharist. I am nourished by Jesus every time I go to Mass and receive the Eucharist. When I receive the Eucharist, I receive Him and His love. I need this nourishment. I need Jesus in order to get through the rest of the week. Jesus loves us so much, He gives us the gift of Himself. Every Mass we experience this gift.
2. Community. I once heard a wonderful homily on Holy Thursday about community. The priest said that we are all unique, with our own fears, and our own ways and our own idiosyncrasies. We will not always agree and we will not always get along. God knew that. Look at the disciples. They did not always agree. Look at their different personalities. So God gave us the Mass in order to bring us together to pray and to worship and to remember we are a family. And to accept each other for who we are, even if only for one hour a week.
3. Worship. We come together to worship the God who made us. We give thanks to the Lord for he is good. Some people think Mass is for receiving. Not really. I mean, yes, we receive nourishment through the Eucharist and through the Word of God. But Mass is for giving to God just one hour of the time that He gives us. Just one hour. Mass is our chance to give of ourselves to Him.
For in him we live and move and have our being (NAB Acts 17:28).

7 Quick Takes Friday

Check out Jennifer at Conversion Diary who is hosting 7 Quick Takes Friday every week. I cannot make it every week but I am glad to be here today.

1. I have to confess that I have not been working on my New Year's resolutions. I never do very well with them. There is just one thing on my mind - something that is always on my mind - but now I am making it a resolution. I want to put God first. I want to give more time to prayer. Everyday. If I can do that, everything that means anything will come together.
2. I love New Year's weekend. Especially this year because it is a 4 day weekend. We just sit around watching movies, eating what we want when we want, nowhere to go, nothing to do. We are basically crashing after the whirlwind of Christmas and Christmas preparations. It is a good time to rejuvenate.
3. I miss my boys already. My youngest is back up north in the cold. He is a native Floridian so this is taking some getting used to for him. For me too. He is too far away.
4. Skipped my email newsletter, Prayerful Morsels, these past two weeks because of the holidays. I named it Prayerful Morsels because I prefer short blurbs of articles in an ezine because of the amount of time I already spend reading blogs. Figured other people preferred shorter articles as well. What do you think?
5. I know Christmas is over and I know I gotta let it go, but I am still steaming about this political correctness stuff having to do with Happy Holidays. In an effort to be fair to all religions, Christians are being discriminated against. That makes no sense. I just do not get it. And it is getting so out of hand, a Catholic who knows I am a Catholic, actually said Happy Holidays to me!! I don’t mean to belabor the point. But gee whiz! Does anyone use common sense any more?
6. My favorite phone call to the parish office has always been, What time is midnight Mass? I just love it. Well, this year I did not get that call and I was very disappointed. But not for long. I got another call which might now be my new favorite phone call of all time. "Is Christmas a holy day of obligation?" Sigh.
7. My best friend of 48 years came to visit yesterday for a couple of hours. She lives out of state but came to Florida with her husband to a conference in a nearby city. We do see each other very often because of the miles between us but we stay in touch by communicating via email and quick short visits. This friendship is and has been such a precious gift. A priceless treasure. I thank God with all my heart for Bonnie and her friendship. God is good. Blessings and Happy New Year!

Jesus Will Carry Burdens

I went to Mass on New Year's Eve, feeling terribly stressed out and tired and grumpy. I had been working at the parish office right up until Mass time at 4 pm. Too much to do. Not enough hours in the day. I sat at Mass having a pity party for myself. And then I kept apologizing to God for being in such a mood and not concentrating on the Mass. By the time I received the Eucharist, I was in tears.
I guess Jesus decided to speak to me then because the message came loud and clear as I sat in my pew quietly after communion. "Come to me, all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." NAB, Matthew 11:28
We go to Mass in all kinds of circumstances. We may be happy, we may be sad, we may be tired, we may be sick. Whatever state of mind we may be in, we go as we are. And we need to remember that God loves us as we are. We do not have to be perfect to go to God. In fact we can't be perfect. It is the grace of God that we need in order to become perfect ... someday. The other side of heaven.
So we bring all our burdens to Him who loves us. And let him carry them for a while. And let him love us.