The Word of God - Our Spiritual Food

"I am the bread of life," Jesus told them. "Those who come to me will never be hungry; those who believe in me will never be thirsty. Now I told you that you have seen me but will not believe. Everyone whom my Father gives me will come to me. I will never turn away anyone who comes to me, because I have come down from heaven to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me. And it is the will of him who sent me that I should not lose any of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them all to life on the last day. For what my Father wants is that all who see the Son and believe in him should have eternal life. And I will raise them to life on the last day."
(John 6: 35 - 40)

Dear friends, Jesus is constantly looking for us, with kindness, compassion and love. He is there to give himself to us for the salvation of our souls out of his great unconditional love for us. Often we don't realize the presence and love of Jesus. we are often blinded with the barriers of this material world and obstacles caused because of the love for luxuries of the world. Nothing of this world can save us but only Jusus who died for our sins and raised to life for our salvation. Jesus doesn't want our souls to be lost. He is there, calling us by name. Let us try to listen to his voice and recognize the great love. Jusus come to us in the form of our neighbours, brothers and sisters. If we are able to look at them and see them, with love, compassion and kindness, we will experience the presence of Jusus in our innerselves. To achieve this we need to be armed with the weapon of daily prayers, and the power of the Rosary will give us the intercession of Mother Mary to support us in our journey to see Jesus.

Lord Jesus, help us to realize your love for us and give us the craving and eagerness to be one with you in spirit, and not to be attracted to what the world can offer, but mold us with the Word Of God, to strengthen our belief for the salvation of our souls.

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

God Our Protector

The power of prayer is unimaginable. Prayer is a mutual, personal and spiritual communication with God who is our creater and protector. God knows all our needs, and He has a plan for our lives, but it is our responsibility to acknowledge God's graces and works in our lives and prayer is that acknowledgement. Through prayer we are thanking God for the graces we have received in our lives and spending time in His presence. Though God knows our every needs, we are again reminded of the importance of asking for God's helping hand in our needs as Jesus says in Mathew 7:7, "Ask and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you."
Again Jesus says, "If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." (Mathew 21:22). So we need to pray as it is the time for us to be with God in spirit.
The prayer for God's protection in Psalm 91, is very important in the lives of many people. People have experienced the powerful hands of God's protection every time they said this prayer before anything they do. The devil is looking for an opportunity to ruin the lives of men. This powerful prayer will keep the devil away and destroy all his plans, as God protects us in His palms.

Psalm 91 GOD OUR PROTECTOR
Whoever goes to the Lord for safery, whoever remains under the protection of the Almighty, can say to Him, "You are my defenderr and protector. You are my God; in You I trust." He will keep you safe from all hidden dangers and from all deadly diseases. He will cover you with His wings; you will be safe in His care; His faithfulness will protect and defend you. You need not fear any dangers at night or sudden attacks during the day or the plagues that strike in the dark or the evils that kill in daylight. A thousand may fall dead beside you, ten thousand all around you, but you will not be harmed. You will look and see how the wicked are punished. You have made the Lord your defender, the Most High your protector, and so no disaster will strike you, no violence will come near your home. God will put His angels in charge of you to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hand to keep you from hurting your feet on the stones. You will trample down lions and snakes, fierce lions and poisonous snakes. God says, "I will save those who love me and will protect those who acknowledge me as Lord. When they call to me I will answer them; when they are in trouble, I will be with them. I will rescue them and honor them. I will reward them with long life; I will save them."

Dear friends, what a wonderful God we have. We need to be always thankful to Him for His protection and blessings in our lives. Thanks be to God.

Prayer - Very Necessary

St. Alphonsus Ligouri observes, "God gives to every creature the means to support itself. Man alone myst struggle to support his life. God Himself wants to be man's support." However, God has made us free. He will not force HIs help upon us. We must acknowledge our own weakness and ask for His help. So, prayer is absolutely necessary for us. God can always give us His grace. But His plan seems to be to give His special graces only in answer to prayer. "Ask and you shall receive" (Mathew 7:7). All the graces God has decided to give us, He wants to give through prayers, not because prayer is necessary for God to know what we need, but it is necessary for us to understand our needs. (St. Thomas).

You and I, everyone would like to become a saint. To be a saint, one must practice charity to a heroic degree. But charity is impossible withour prayer. A saint is a man of prayer.

The secret of all our strenght is prayer. Prayer is all powerful with God. It places the infinite power of God at our disposal. Every problem in life is overcome with faith and prayer. Great is the power at the disposal of every one. It is the most universal of all helps. When God wishes to elevate a soul, He increases its spirit of prayer.

Workaholism (over work) and lack of fidelity to prayer can be destructive forces in the active lives of apostolate of priests and religious. If we increase our "social service" without without proportionate increase in prayer-life, we are at the brink of danger! If we have more work, we must pray more.

We have to make our relationship with God the axis of our life, the central point around which all else revolve. When we are very busy, we may give up recreation, study time and sleep, before our prayer time is invaded. The more we pray, the more we find that we need to pray, and the less we pray, the less we realize our need to spend time with God. One who is too busy to find time for prayer will lose his faith. If we do not seek a personal relationship with God, we will start forgetting Him.

Courtesy: Prayer with the heart, Fr. C. Bernard, C.R.

Prayer with the Heart

George Washington, when he was President of America, used to pray daily for an hour in the morning before he began work and another hour in the evening after work. St. Thomas Moore used to spend, daily the time between 2 am and 6 am in prayer. They had, indeed, realized that 'More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.' Miss Monica Baldwin, the ex-nun, wrote in the Times of London that she and Fr. Charles Davis lost their vocation because they neglected to pray. Fr. Davis renounced even his faith. Bernard J Topel of Spokane used to advise his seminarians to cultivate personal prayer or discontinue thier clerical studies. The Spokane diocese got more vocations than any other in the country, while many other dioceses are suffering a drop in the number of vocations.


Personal Prayer:
I am not speaking here just of vocal prayer or of meditation strictly speaking, but rather about personal mental prayer. This prayer is more a loving than thinking; more an attitude than words or thoughts; it is more spontaneous than structural, more a listening than a talking.
What is prayer and how to pray are two questions difficult to answer. It cannot be otherwise as St. Paul himself testifes; "We do not know how to pray as we ought"(Romans 8:26).

Courtesy: Prayer with the Heart, Fr. Chacko Bernard C.R.

Who Am I?

Who am I? Ofcourse I am a human being with all the feelings, craving and desires to live a life as comfortable as I can in this world and not willing to think about death at all. For many this is the right (false) way of thinking. But is it true? Are we not hiding the reality? Are we just ignoring the fact that we need to nourish our souls as well?
A human being is made of spirit and body, but more often we spend time thinking of the desires, feelings and comforts of the body and ignoring the spiritual needs, the sprititual cravings and often unfilling the spiritual desires.
God really would like us all to nourish our souls, so that we can be the shareolders of His kingdom one day when we all have to live this body and end all the desires of the body through death.
For a man to be a human being, he needs to have a body as well as a well-nourished spirit. The tempatations of this world always remain as an enemy of God's spirit that dwell in us. We need to fight against this evil temptations and stand against our own physical desires sometimes, to regain spiritual strength. We shoud be able to resist and avoid our feelings such as anger, lust, craving for wealth, greed, jealosy and any other feelings that keep us far from receiving the gift of God.
Parents should be more careful to lay a good example and model for their children, by living a life as Jesus told us to live, abiding the Word of God and living as a real christian.