Preparing our hearts and minds

There is something 'ever new' about the Word of God. It is a living Word, coming to us afresh in all the different circumstances and experiences which make up our lives. The Word of God has the power to surprise us, jolt us, and transform us over and over again.
To receive this life-giving Word we have to be prepared. It is useful to reflect on the words of the Prophet Isaiah: 'Prepare a way for the Lord....make a straight highway for our God.' (Isaiah 40:3).
St. Mark used these words in speaking of the coming of Jesus. We use them, this week, to make sure that our hearts are ready to receive the Word.
This will mean making sure that our own preferences, our own convictions about how things should be, especially the things of the Church, do not get in the way of the Word who comes to us, to change us, to reshape our minds and hearts.

Change is hard. It does not come easily or naturally. We can be deeply attached, entrenched and, let us be honest, wedded to our own views, opinions and ideas about many things. Some are of little consequence; others are not. We can have views and opinions that are as stubborn as the highest mountains or the the most rugged of cliffs. The problem is that they often block our receiving the word which alone gives us true and lasing joy. When we examine our lives we see the ways that our thinking impacts on the way we related to God and others. We need courage to challenge our own thingking and God's grace to change it.

Lord, teach me to examine my life and by the grace of the Holy Spirit be tansformed by the renewal of my mind.


Courtesy of: Walk with me, www.alivepublishing.co.uk

The Nun's Story

A news appeared on Daily Mirror on Monday the 30th of April 2012 about Laura Adshead who was the former lover of David Cameron. The news goes on like this:

Kicking the habit: How Prime Minister's former lover kicked drug addiction and became a nun

Laura Adshead dated the future Prime Minister for more than a year but turned her back on a successful career to become Sister John Mary. A former lover of David Cameron became a nun after beating an alcohol and drug addiction, it emerged today. Laura Adshead dated the future Prime Minister for more than a year but turned her back on a successful career to become Sister John Mary. The 44-year-old was Mr Cameron’s lover when the pair were working together at Conservative Party HQ in London in 1990. Oxford-educated Laura was then-PM John Major’s correspondence secretary before moving to New York to join an ad agency. But the stress of her high-profile job saw her plunge into a world of drink and drug addiction. And now the former society girl has found her unlikely salvation in God along with 36 other nuns at an abbey in Connecticut, US. She said: “I did think my life would progress on the normal tracks of meeting someone, marrying, having children, but that’s not the path that God has led me. "I feel like I tried most things in life that are supposed to make you happy. “That journey took me down into alcoholism and drug addiction.” By 2008 Laura declared her hard-partying days were over and announced that she had decided to become a nun. She recalled: “I remember having to tell my mother, ‘I’m going to join the abbey,’ and she said, ‘Yes, I can see this world has no real meaning for you any more.’ I looked at this place and saw women who had what I wanted. You decide to surrender your life to God.”

Laura has swapped her bouffant blonde hairstyle for a closely cropped cut and wears a long serge habit and traditional wimple. Her day at the Abbey of Regina Laudis begins at 2am when a bell rings to announce night-time prayers. Then it clangs at first light, again at 8am for Mass and then at regular intervals until sunset prayers at 5pm. Her jobs include caring for a herd of cattle on the abbey’s land and mopping the chapel floors. She said: “There’s no way out. You don’t get to leave and go to a movie. You don’t get distraction from all the human emotions.
"It’s like this hothouse where things get worked out.”

Laura took her vows four years ago but her “formation” – a nun apprenticeship – lasts for as long as five-and-a-half years. Only at the end of this apprenticeship will she be eligible to take holy orders and assume the title of “Mother”. She is now the star of a new film – God Is The Bigger Elvis – documenting her life from a hopeful in British politics to a Catholic nun.
The title is a reference to the convent’s Prioress Mother Dolores. One-time Hollywood starlet Dolores Hart appeared with Elvis Presley in two of his films, Loving You and King Creole, before entering the order in 1963. Laura said: “This is the only place I could see myself being – because this is where it’s at.”

How lucky those who realize the real meaning of life and work towards achieving their goal of uniting with God.


Courtesy of: Daily Mirror. Article by Martin Flicker