Fighting Humbly

I don't know how to fight and yet be humble. When I say fight I literally mean to fight viciously against anything and everything that can take me from my Jesus, while yet being docile to the gentle Holy Spirit trying to lead me and merciful to all the people who inevitably are not perfect around me. I struggle with keeping my heart stalwartly in the cement of faithfulness while being docile to God and approachable to others who may not be where I am in life. This juxtaposition that meets in the true definition of humility is the key to spiritual warfare... its the key to staying faithful to Jesus in a world that tries with its entire strength and might to rip you from Him and throw you to the dogs while being gentle in love. The saints say that humility is the weapon best used in the spiritual life -and yet sometimes I feel like I fight so hard to be faithful that there is no room left for humility. Am I nothing enough yet to walk through a spiritual battlefield with raging bombs and not be touched? And yet, is a little soldier gal supposed to be nothing -or instead aren't we supposed to be brilliant, vibrant, exuberant versions of who God created us to be. Is that humble? Humility is truth and so the answer has got to be somewhere between the bold determination and the contentness in being so weak that collide in my heart.

Good thing I don't even have to understand all this... I give it all to my Sweet Jesus and He can rearrange the furniture in my heart... He can form me... and I just have to trust Him when I don't see what He's doing in the darkness.  Its just my thoughts tonight... the musings of Mary:

Jesus, we love You. Jesus we trust in You. +

His Love is our Hope.

The Holy Family brought light into the darkest of journies...

May sweet Mary and Joseph and little Jesus always be 

our Light and Guide...

The Power of Naming People

Words have power. If Jesus was the Word made Flesh and He had creative power (and God the Father used words to create, like saying, 'Fiat Lux' and there was light, etc.,) this is somehow mysteriously reflected in our relationship with words (made in the image and likeness of the Trinity). And we need to be careful with this. 

Words create and give life when they are positive and they destroy when they are negative. Yesterday I encountered some nephews and nieces who are always positive and loving to me (even a few teenage ones who usually don't have much to say to me) and they all were really loving -it gave me life. Later in the evening I heard an adult ripping me to pieces in the next room -it didn't matter so much that what he was saying was not true, instead it was like being shot repeatedly or ripped apart by the negative, unkind, unloving attitude. I eventually had to just leave the event. 

People become often what they are called -or at the very least they are affected by it. When we were little my Mom would sing, 'Mary is a good little girl' over and over and I believe it contributed to my being good. The blessing of a parent is powerful (just as the negativity or cursing of a parent is -so be careful what you say!)

I was reading a book this week that went very in depth about the power of words and particularly 'naming people' -and how the author had experimented on a large level in the effect of naming people good and their reaction of becoming good. When we praise God for people and name them (even behind their backs) in a positive light they mysteriously have extra grace to be a blessing in our lives. I could write a super long post on this, but instead I'll leave it simple: only say good, positive, kind things about others. We have enough negativity in the world. And if someone is being difficult, find something praiseworthy in them and focus on that. Truly what if the world only spoke blessings about each other... like Ephesians says, 'Speaking in songs and hymns and psalms to each other'... wouldn't it be a better place?

St. Paisios -a beautiful reflection from the Orthodox

The "Beatitudes" of St. Paisios the Athonite

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Savior (source)

  

Note: Truly beautiful and astonishing are these "Beatitudes" of St. Paisios the Athonite, modeled after the Beatitudes of Christ and the lives and writings of the Saints. May we be humbled by his love, sacrifice and self-denial, on behalf of God and his fellow man. May we not despair of our weakness and sinfulness, but make a small effort, through the discretion and guidance of our spiritual fathers to make a change for the better, through the intercessions of such a great saint of our century!
    
The "Beatitudes" of St. Paisios the Athonite
1. Blessed are those who love Christ more than all the worldly things and live far from the world and near God, with heavenly joys upon the earth.
  2. Blessed are those who manage to live in obscu­rity and acquired great virtues but did not acquire even a small name for themselves.
  3. Blessed are those who manage to act the fool and, in this way, protected their spiritual wealth 
4. Blessed are those who do not preach the Gospel with words, but live it and preach it with their silence, with the Grace of God, which betrays them.
  5. Blessed are those who rejoice when unjustly ac­cused, rather than when they are justly praised for their virtuous life. Here are the signs of holiness, not in the dry exertion of bodily asceticism and the great number of struggles, which, when not carried out with humility and the aim to take off the old man, create only illusions.

St. Paisios the Athonite (source)

  6. Blessed are those who prefer to be wronged rather than to wrong others and accept serenely and silently injustices. In this way, they reveal in practice that they believe in “one God, the Father Almighty” and expect to be vindicated by Him and not by human beings who repay in this life with vanity.

7. Blessed are those who have been born crippled or became so due to their own carelessness, yet do not grumble but glorify God. They will hold the best place in Paradise along with the Confessors and Martyrs, who gave their hands and feet for the love of Christ and now constantly kiss with devoutness the hands and feet of Christ in Paradise.
  8. Blessed are those who were born ugly and are de­spised here on earth, because they are entitled to the most beautiful place in Paradise, provided they glorify God and do not grumble.
  9. Blessed are those widows who wear black in this life, even unwillingly, but live a white spiritual life and glorify God without complaining, rather than the mis­erable ones who wear assorted clothes and live a spot­ted life.
10. Blessed and thrice blessed are the orphans who have been deprived of their parents’ great affection, for they managed to have God as their Father already from this life. At the same time, they have the affection they were deprived of from their parents in God’s savings bank “with interest”.
   

St. Paisios the Athonite (source)

  11. Blessed are those parents who avoid the use of the word “don’t” with their children, instead restraining them from evil through their holy life – a life which chil­dren imitate, joyfully following Christ with spiritual bravery.
  12. Blessed are those children who have been born “from their mother’s womb”(Mt. 19:12) holy, but even more blessed are those who were born with all the inherited passions of the world, struggled with sweat and up­rooted them and inherited the Kingdom of God in the sweat of their face ^{(Cf. Gen. 3:19)}.
13. Blessed are those children who lived from in­fancy in a spiritual environment and, thus, tirelessly ad­vanced in the spiritual life.
Thrice blessed, however, are the mistreated ones who were not helped at all (on the contrary, they were pushed towards evil), but as soon as they heard of Christ, their eyes glistened, and with a one hundred and eighty degree turn they suddenly made their soul to shine as well. They departed from the attraction of earth and moved into the spiritual sphere.
  14. Fortunate, worldly people say, are the astronauts who are able to spin in the air, orbit the moon or even walk on the moon.
Blessed, however, are the immaterial “Paradise-nauts”, who ascend often to God and travel about Paradise, their place of permanent abode, with the quickest of means and without much fuel, besides one crust of bread.
15. Blessed are those who glorify God for the moon that glimmers that they might walk at night.
More blessed, however, are those who have come to understand that neither the light of the moon is of the moon, nor the spiritual light of their soul of them­selves, but both are of God. Whether they can shine like a mirror, a pane of glass or the lid of a tin can, if the rays of the sun do not fall on them, it is impossible for them to shine.
   

St. Paisios the Athonite (source)

16. Fortunate, worldly people tell us, are those who live in crystal palaces and have all kinds of conven­iences.
Blessed, however, are those who have managed to sim­plify their life and become liberated from the web of this world’s development of numerous conveniences (i.e. many inconveniences), and were released from the frightening stress of our present age.

 17. Fortunate, worldly people say, are those who can enjoy the goods of the world.

Blessed, however, are those who give away every­thing for Christ and are deprived even of every hu­man consolation for Christ. Thus it is that they man­age to be found night and day near Christ and His di­vine consolation, which many times is so much that they say to God: “My God, Thy love cannot be en­dured, for it is great and cannot be fit within my small heart”.

  18. Fortunate, worldly people say, are those who have the greatest jobs and the largest mansions, since they possess all means and live comfortably.

Blessed, however, according to the divine Paul, are those who have but a nest to perch in, a little food and some coverings⁹⁹• For, in this way, they’ve managed to become estranged from the vain world, using the earth as a footstool, as children of God, and their mind is con­stantly found close to God, their Good Father.

St. Paisios the Athonite (source)

  

  19. Fortunate are those who become generals and government ministers in their head by way of heavy drinking (even if just for a few hours), with the world­ly rejoicing over it.

Blessed, however, are those who have put off the old man and have become incorporeal, managing to be earthly angels with the Holy Spirit. They have found Paradise’s divine faucet and drink from it and are con­tinually inebriated from the heavenly wine.

  20. Blessed are those who were born crazy and will be judged as crazy, and, in this way, will enter Paradise without a passport.

Blessed and thrice blessed, however, are the very wise who feign foolishness for the love of Christ and mock all the vanity of the world. This foolishness for Christ’s sake is worth more than all the knowledge and wisdom of the wise of this world.

I beg all the Sisters to pray for God to give me, or rather take from me my little mind, and, in this way, se­cure Paradise for me by considering me a fool. Or, make me crazy with His love so I go out my self, outside of the earth and its pull, for, otherwise my life as a monk has no meaning. I became externally white as a monk. As I go I become internally black by being a negligent monk, but I justify myself as one unhealthy, when I hap­pen to be so; other times, I excuse myself again for be­ing ill, even though I am well, and so I deserve to be thoroughly thrashed. Pray for me. 

May Christ and Panagia be with you,

With love of Christ, Your Brother, Monk Paisios

Bold Humility

A couple of years ago I was making a retreat at a Marian Shrine and the priest in his homily spoke about the 'bold humility' of Our Lady and how we are all called to imitate it.

Humility is truth -the truth about who we are and the truth about Who God is. Often when people think of humility they think of what the saints would call false humility -when a person defaces himself or pretends to be lowly solely for show. But real humility should empower us -because within a heart filled with God's virtue of humility, we have the knowledge of our own dependence on God and the confidence of the Love He has for us as His children who He wants to be well-provided for. In light of this, humility doesn't always have to be silent or inactive, instead it can be like Mary on Her road to visit Elizabeth -She was aware of Her need for God's protection and guidance and yet she allowed Her faith (and confidence in God's provisional love) to be her foundation as She set forth alone in order to help her cousin. Real humility is set in the security of God's Love and sets us off in heroic and courageous ways to do God's will. Be boldly humble today:

The Battle for the Lost Sheep.

I posted this July 1st, but the readings at Mass today are all about the same thing... Our Good Shepherd -so I'm going to re-post it again.

Thank You, Jesus, for being such a Good Shepherd. +

So often we make the  mistake of thinking that God is somehow like us in our thinking and ways of doing things. In reality, HE is the reality, the goal, the authentic one that our lives should be striving to imitate. I read this quote of St. Maximus and I reflect on Jesus, our battle-scarred Shepherd and I think, "I wish people would imitate my wounded One." Yes, humans have freewill and the unfortunate reality is that they use this freewill wrongly so often -they use it to make themselves look good and to harm the defenseless ones. They use freewill to control, to lie, to twist, to selfishly put-down or accuse... and Jesus needing pure love in this world has to leave people free so that they at least have the chance to choose to use freewill for love. They don't, many times. 

But Jesus doesn't leave any soul entrusted to Him trapped alone. He sword-fights His way into our messy lives and disregarding the wounds, takes the blows that were coming our way upon His Own Face and Back. Yes, I feel the sting of other's selfish manipulation ... daily, even... but it would be WAY WORSE if my sweet Jesus didn't go before me in this mess and take the brunt of the blows on Himself. No, He cannot change the human heart that gets hard, that gets comfortable dominating others... only an individual soul can freely choose to accept the Love of the Father and change by itself. But He can (and does) climb into our difficult situations caused by other's sins against us (whether it be the sin of evil or the sin of their indifference to our plight) and He bleeds for us. Yes, my Jesus bleeds for me... He bleeds to soften the hearts of those who have decided to ruin me (every life has encounters with such people) -and He shelters me with His rod and staff beating away those who come against me. Yes, He 'cannot' change my plight without forcing those who have chosen sin and selfishness (He can invite them, but not force them to respond to His Love), but He can (and does) climb into the mess of things and give it meaning -give it His meaning. He can sit by me and say to the world, "I'm actually on her side in this mess... what you do to her, you do to Me." He frees me.

Yesterday I was pondering on a situation again wondering, "Where is my defense, Lord? It feels like lies, jealousy, power, money, control, gossip is ahead in this arena..." And He responded again in my heart, "My Love defends you. When you die, you get to be closer to Me than any of them... because you were right, they were wrong and you suffered injustice heroically with Me." Wow. That's powerful stuff. I got to be the sheep ... Its amazing who God raises up sometimes to be His Voice and Heart. In fact, yesterday, Jesus was my encouraging Shepherd through the voice of a child. I spent some of the day yesterday helping BJ re-stain their deck. At one point praying I thought, "I hope I'm doing this right. Oh Jesus, why have they (not BJ, 'they' being the proverbial 'they' of people who have been mean to me in the world) beaten me so badly that I even doubt my staining abilities." Immediately, as if an answer to my interior prayer, BJ's oldest son Luke came around the corner to encourage me. He yelled, "Aunt Mary, that looks great! You're doing such an awesome job! Do you want a drink? What great work!" Yes, my little Luke was the voice of Jesus encouraging me. A spiritual director 20 years ago told me that I had a soul that needed a ton of affirmation and that its just the way I was sensitively made. Jesus somehow told my little nephew Luke that yesterday. The Holy Spirit is amazing. Anyway, just a little more reflection on the powerful and awesome love of Jesus manifesting Himself in different ways. Thank you, Jesus... I trust in You. +

"When Jesus found wandering in the mountains and hills the one sheep that had strayed from God's flock of a hundred, He brought it back to the fold, but He did not exhaust it by driving it ahead of Him. Instead, He placed it on His Own Shoulders and so, compassionately, He restored it safely to the flock."

 -St. Maximus the Confessor

To Be Known by God...

"If anyone loves God, He is known by God." (1 Corinthians 8:3)

"Now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God..." (Galatians 4:9)

"Now I know in part; then (in heaven) I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

I can't tell you the peace and security it gives to me to know that I am known by God. Its only something I reflect on when I encounter the opposite in life -a situation of misunderstanding or a person who no matter what I say just doesn't get me. I've written about this before, and my priest friend Fr. Dariusz's comment to me in Russia that only people who love me understand me. But I think this is true not just for me, but in relationships in general. And in light of this, how natural for God to completely know me because He completely loves me. And when we plug into God's knowledge and love of a person, He allows us to partake of this life-giving, freeing, respectful, grace-filled relationship that He has with whoever that person is.

Now, all knowledge does not come from love. Sapiential knowledge does -sapiential relates to wisdom and the biblical explanation of wisdom is 'a listening heart'... a heart in a love relationship with God who listens in Love and receives a knowledge of Love. This isn't fact knowledge like satan knows about us (and uses against us). Its a knowledge of our lives and persons based in Love and whose purpose is to grow us towards a love relationship with God and each other. Simple reflections like this give me peace... because this was God's original plan for humanity (to relate in holy knowledge and Love) and this is what He redeemed... this is what He wants for us to share in with Him: a knowledge and Love of Him and each other based in Love that gives off Love. We are supposed to 'smell' to the world like Love. Its an incredible image.

The first phrase I always learn in a new language is 'I don't know.' When I'm in a new culture working with a new language more often than not I'm just not going to know what is going on or what people are saying to me (until I get a better grasp on their language). At Notre Dame my Italian class would laugh at my repeated 'Non lo so' -and in Poland and Russia people got used to 'Sister Mary' or 'Aunt Mary' saying 'Nie wiem' or 'Я не знаю.' So often I just don't know the answer to things. My comfort in life comes in knowing that God knows everything and I know God. By the transitive principle, I have nothing to worry about because my God, my Father in heaven who knows me in Love (meaning He knows what is best for me and desires that and is capable of making it happen) knows the answer to pretty much any and every predicament I find myself in in life. There is a powerful covering of Love I feel overshadow me when I can sit with my sweet Jesus in the Eucharist and know that I am known by Him, loved by Him, protected by Him, defended by Him (even if others choose to ignore His defense)... I'm in His arms and care. And each time people selfishly try to usurp Him, He knocks them away and takes me back. Thank You, Jesus. Name and Claim me... because only with You (or with those who are truly with You) am I actually safe and loved in this dangerous and so often evil world. Jesus, we trust in You.

Fiat. +

Sometimes Jesus' Answer is This Simple...

Praying Positively and the Power of Authentic Love

Most people know that speaking positive words spreads a power of positivity over people and that speaking negative words often spreads negativity. There is a time where people suffering need to speak of that suffering, but it should only be to trustworthy individuals who, while listening to the Holy Spirit, are able to shed a hopeful or Godly light on the situation (even if not directly speaking about God). Fr. Flanagan, the founder of SOLT, used to tell us that we should always be listening to people with one ear attuned to their words while another ear attuned to the Holy Spirit. But this has to be done not in a spirit of ignoring, but a spirit of love -of sort of listening so attentively to another with the Holy Spirit that the person goes away feeling listened to, understood and loved. Even if you didn't understand their entire predicament from their explanation, the Holy Spirit who you invited to be part of that conversation should have come like He promised to do when we call on Him and shared His spirit of understanding between the two conversing souls.

This morning someone asked me a question and pushed me for an answer -as I tried to explain myself they started a conversation with someone in the other room who responded as a sign that both really didn't care about me or what I felt or was saying. Frustrating was that they asked me the question and pushed for the answer... they simply never intended to get one, let alone one that wasn't what they were thinking. After yelling a new conversation to the next-door room didn't work, they simply started praying Hail Mary's outloud so as to say, "I never wanted an answer." Yes, sometimes praying 'Hail Mary's' is actually mean. I wasn't saying anything offensive -in fact, they asked a question that had to do with where I painted and to my and their chagrin, I really had an answer and it had to do with phenomenology and it made them mad. I don't know how to explain how poorly it makes another feel to not be loved in a conversation. In this situation, it felt like there was nothing present in the conversation except someone's selfish desire to prove me wrong. But relationships don't work like that. Real relationships have to be based on Love. And so, real conversations have to be based on Love -and be an exchange of Love. I speak to and/or listen to you seriously because it is the most loving thing to do in that moment... because it helps both you and me grow closer to God and His original plan for our lives (even if we never mention His Name). I see someone crying or doing something I don't understand and I ask them about it because I truly seek their good -even if it means a sacrifice of my time or an answer I don't like. I don't talk to someone so that I can gossip about the conversation later (I purposely did not put names or details in the example above) or so that I can plot about how to get a foot up on them later. I don't talk to someone so that I feel good or smart or helpful -but because truly its the sacrificial loving thing to do and it actually is helpful. If it is not helpful, I avoid it so that there is room for God or another person who might be more gifted in that relationship to enter in... That is love. Seeking the good of the beloved. That is being positive.

Anyway, this situation was the springboard of my blog post this morning. Because speaking truth (which in its essence is loving -not facts, but truth like Jesus is Truth) should always give life. Words in conversations should be positive and full of humility (which is truth -humility is simply the truth of who we are and the truth of who God is). And thinking about all of this this morning, I once again began to see how these things flow over into our prayer as well. If this is all true when it comes to people conversations, how much more true is it in my God conversation of prayer. We need the positive Holy Spirit in prayer.

I can go to Jesus and be negative -He takes it in and offers grace to be positive. I can only receive that grace if my heart is actually open in humility and a desire to change. But I see that prayer is even more powerful when it is prayed positively. There is an Orthodox book that I love called "Our Thoughts determine Our Lives..." It speaks of something similar that by thinking and praying positively we can change the spirit around us. I think its just a means of opening my heart more fully to the Holy Spirit (Who is quintessential positivity) -as a religious sister friend of mine used to say, 'Giving our hearts as a resting place for the Holy Spirit.' Jesus Himself encouraged positive prayer. He affirmed those who were thankful in prayer, who praised God in prayer and those who prayed (positively) with confidence. He said, "Ask with true faith and it will be done for you... " Faith is a positive, confident trust or belief that what you are asking God for will be answered in the most loving, positive, life-giving, awesome way possible. When you pray positively with confidence you are re-wiring any negative places in your brain and in your heart to be more similar to the Holy Spirit and life-giving. Love is positive. Even the Love of Jesus Crucified was Positive. People have asked me why I am so in love with Jesus' suffering -shouldn't I be more positive? Can you imagine doing what Jesus did for us and having the world blow it over or ignore it? I don't like to think about how cruel everyone was to Him -but I like to be with His Heart even in the midst of such cruelty because His positivity and healing and goodness was that much stronger there. Jesus' Response to human and demonic torture and death was incredible. The Resurrection was simply our seeing that conquering of God's Love and Light that was already happening hiddenly deep in the crevices of the Sacred Heart on the Cross.

I guess this is enough for today (especially since only a few read this -but only a few shepherds and kings came to see baby Jesus and only a few women were faithful witnesses under the Cross and sometimes its the best things that will bear the greatest fruit when visited by 'only a few' -God's ways are simply not our own.) I'll leave off here with this thought for today -speak and Pray Positively. Pray with Confidence even when its a fight and you feel you have none. Just move the will (like a muscle that gets tired)... and pray thanking God for something, praising Him and in such a way that you believe He can and will answer you (even if your belief has been crushed to the size of a mustard seed -it can still move a mountain.) Even if you need to describe a negative situation, do it with that air of trust that God is Good and has a plan out of it.

Please, Come Holy Spirit -and teach us to pray confidently and positively.
And thank you for Your Love.
Amen.

A beautiful place to pray...

Now this is a cool adoration chapel.
Jesus is so good and beautiful.

Sparrows...

Matthew 6:25-34

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ...

Matthew 10:29-31 

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

The Power of Prayer and Fasting

I'm soliciting spiritual warriors.
Our Lady of Medjugorje, Queen of Peace, said, "Through fasting and prayer one can stop wars…”

In my own life the power of prayer and fasting has been incredible. But I have a special intention that my own prayer and fasting has not been able to budge (and its not because God wants something different -its something that is objectively good vs. evil.) Obviously I've been cut from those who mean most to me (since emails, gofundme and blogs aren't answered). But I'm desperate for some good souls willing to get down and dirty to help me (okay, actually not down and dirty -just praying and fasting.) Here's a novena to Our Lady Undoer of Knots and a request for some fasting along with it (big or small) as much as you can for the next couple of months. 

God will repay you, I promise. 

Thank you. 
Mary
fiat +

 Pope Francis’ Prayer to Mary Undoer of Knots

Holy Mary, full of God’s presence during the day of your life, you accepted with full humility the Father’s will, and the devil was never capable of tying you up with his confusion.

Once with your Son you interceded for our difficulties, and full of kindness and patience, you gave us example of how to untie the knots in our life. By remaining forever Our Mother, you put in order and make more clear the ties that link us to the Lord.

Holy Mother, Mother of God and our Mother, to you who untie with a motherly heart the knots of our life, we pray to you to receive in your hands (the name of the person), and to free him/her of the knots and confusion with which our enemy attacks.

Through your grace, your intercession and your example deliver us from all evil, Our Lady, and untie the knots that prevent us from being united with God, so that we, free from sin and error, may find Him in all things, may have our hearts placed in Him, and may serve Him always in our brothers and sisters. Amen.

Click to enlarge...

A Theology of Tears...

Psalm 56:8 "He stores my tears in His bottle and records them in His book." 

People make the mistake of saying, 'For crying out loud!' as if crying out loud was a negative thing. Jesus cried out loud and Jesus blessed many people who cried out loud to Him. I have met many people who were wounded as children by being told that they were not allowed to cry. They proceeded to spend a lifetime with Jesus learning that tears are not only not shameful, but actually a gift and a tool of prayer when united with God. 

There are many kinds of tears (tears of repentance, tears of joy, tears of sorrow and tears of manipulation) -perhaps manipulative tears need to be corrected by a parent, but one must walk very carefully into the human heart of a child to guide them in this, because only God understands the depths of one's soul (even as a child) and telling someone they are not allowed to cry emotionally constipates them. There was a religious sister I knew well once who said that for 50 years she never cried because her mom wouldn't let her as a child and that she was only able to come to spiritual healing with God once she met me, saw my unconditional love for her even in (and especially in) tearful moments and after weeping almost non-stop for a year. I spoke with another lady a few days ago who said the same thing. Crying is cathartic (its not a sin and its definitely not evil) -but by uniting one's tears with heaven one begins to weep differently -powerfully -because the tears of Jesus and Mary move the Heart of God.

My favorite passage of the Bible is also the shortest passage. It is from the Gospel of John and the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. It says, 'Jesus wept.' Jesus cried! Yes, even Jesus Christ cried, and not just in the depths of His Passion and Agony. He was a human person who felt emotion and when He saw His friend Mary Magdalene crying over her brother Lazarus He broke down crying as well. He cried over Jerusalem and the hard, closed hearts that He met on His way (I understand that -people's closed and hard hearts make me cry all of the time.) Its tears of pity that one hopes actually softens the hearts that are hard and closed. Its possible. Drips of water on a rock over a period of time eventually wear away a hole into the stone. In the same way tears can soften or open a passage into the hardest of hearts. In fact, Jesus blessed tears so much that He said in Scripture (Luke 19:40)  "I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!" And sometimes stones had to cry out... look at crying statues. When people's hearts are too hard, God uses stone to weep over sin and compassion other's pain.

When people cried, Jesus blessed them. Look at the woman from Nain who Jesus met on the road. He saw a woman weeping over her son who had died and it moved His Heart with such compassion that He raised the boy from the dead. St. Augustine said that his mother St. Monica spent years weeping over his life of sin. He wrote: "She had wept over me as one dead, yet cried to you that I might be raised by you. She had carried me forth upon the bier of her thoughts, so that you might say to the son of the widow, Young man, I say to you, arise, and he might return to life and begin to speak, and you might restore him to his mother." And it was St. Ambrose who said to St. Monica, "It is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish."

In Luke 7:36-50 Jesus defends Mary Magdalene's tears: "One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, so Jesus went into the Pharisee’s house and sat at the table.  A sinful woman in the town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house. So she brought an alabaster jar of perfume  and stood behind Jesus at his feet, crying. She began to wash his feet with her tears, and she dried them with her hair, kissing them many times and rubbing them with the perfume. When the Pharisee who asked Jesus to come to his house saw this, he thought to himself, “If Jesus were a prophet, he would know that the woman touching him is a sinner!”Jesus said to the Pharisee, “Simon, I have something to say to you.”Simon said, “Teacher, tell me.”Jesus said, “Two people owed money to the same banker. One owed five hundred coins and the other owed fifty. They had no money to pay what they owed, but the banker told both of them they did not have to pay him. Which person will love the banker more?” Simon, the Pharisee, answered, “I think it would be the one who owed him the most money. Jesus said to Simon, “You are right.”  Then Jesus turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? When I came into your house, you gave me no water for my feet, but she washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss of greeting, but she has been kissing my feet since I came in. You did not put oil on my head, but she poured perfume on my feet. I tell you that her many sins are forgiven, so she showed great love. But the person who is forgiven only a little will love only a little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The people sitting at the table began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”Jesus said to the woman, “Because you believed, you are saved from your sins. Go in peace.”

One of my favorite apparitions is Our Lady of La Salette where the Blessed Mother appeared crying. It was her tears that moved the heart of God to have mercy and grant great graces to the country of France.

There is much we can gain from meditating on the gift of tears.

God loves and blesses tears. He said to Hezekiah “I have heard your tears…” He heard Hannah’s prayer crying in the temple. He answered Ester's and Judith's and Susanna's tearful prayers. He even answered David's tears. There is power in tearful prayers and love -to the point that the Eastern Church marks tears as a sign of the Holy Spirit and as a special gift in prayer.  Jesus, grant me this grace of the Holy Spirit as well. 

We need the ‘courage to cry’ in the world in a way. We need to 'peek’ into Jesus’ Interior life in this…because He Himself set an example for us with tearful prayer. In Gethsemane Scripture says He prayed to His Father 'with loud cries, prayers and supplications’. In fact if He suffered so greatly that He sweat blood, He most likely cried blood as well. On Calvary the last act Jesus did before He died was to cry out loud (imagine that!). It says,“And Jesus cried out.”

           

The tears of our Savior are powerful (and our tears united to His are a powerful prayer as well.) Take a second and meditate on:

How would Jesus have responded to His Mother’s tears? –on Joseph’s deathbed, for example?

How would Jesus have responded to His little sister’s tears? To a baby or child’s tears?

How did Jesus respond to the wailing woman in the funeral procession?

How did Jesus respond to Mary Magdalene’s tears at Lazarus’ tomb?

How does Jesus respond to My tears?

When Jesus saw people crying, He cried too.

How did Jesus respond to the apostles crying out to Him during the storm at sea?

How did Jesus (interiorly) respond to Peter crying after denying Him three times? (He looked ‘with love’.)

How did Jesus respond to the parents of the little girl who died before He raised her from the dead? (He calmed their tears and healed her.)

How did Jesus’ Heart respond to the crying of the Holy Innocents’ slaughter (‘Rachel’s tears’)?

How did Jesus react to tears?

What is God teaching us about tears? 

Scientists have studied the chemical make-up of tears and discovered that it is the same thing as sweat -both liquids have the purpose of cleansing the body of poison that stress causes. That is why men who sweat so much tend to need to cry less. Tears cleanse poison -and on the spiritual level, by praying with tears and through the intercession of Jesus' and Mary's tears, the spiritual poison of evil, sickness, death, despair, etc., is cleansed from our lives. 

For a long time I have had a devotion to the tears of the Blessed Mother. There is a Chaplet of Our Lady's tears that I have prayed for almost 20 years and it is a powerful weapon against evil. As I pray I meditate on each tear being a rose… a shower of tears is a shower of roses... What does Our Lady's tears do? They call on (tug on) the Heart of the Father -and earthly tears united to Jesus' and Mary's have a dimension of Divine Love within them. The infant tears of Mary were as pure and holy as Her tears on Calvary. So often we pray to honor the blood shed on Calvary, but what about the tears of Jesus and His Mother begging for the salvation of the world? Here is a beautiful chaplet to pray:

There is much, much more I could write on this subject (I'd love to do an entire retreat on tears), but this is enough (at least for today). When you don't know how to pray the next time you encounter a seemingly hopeless situation, turn towards Jesus and Mary's tears. If a child's tears can melt the heart of a human parent, how much more can the tears of Our Savior and His Mother melt the Heart of God.

Johnny, Gerber daisies and a black Jesus

I used to help Johnny identify with Jesus by finding him black Jesuses and explaining how what he suffered, Jesus also suffered with him. Sometimes I would paint them too:

I found this Jesus recently and it is one of my favorites because it actually looks like Jesus with dark skin. 

I was raised Polish-American, but my heart is divided among all of the people I have met and helped and been helped by throughout the world. I remember after a couple of years in Siberia Bobby wrote to me that I was starting to look Russian. Its normal for a person to pick up the spirit of those they serve, so that didn't surprise me. But there is also something African about my heart... something about every group of people who have become my family over the years as I lived, prayed and served among them. For this reason, I identify with black Jesus pictures (especially when they look like Jesus.) Johnny always wanted to work with me in my crazy vocation. When I was in Russia he wrote to me that if I came back to the US to serve, he promised to be a priest to work along side of me. When we were in Poland and Spain, he said that the places I was showing him where I had lived were so cool that when I died he wanted to take people on a tour to see what he had seen.

Well, Johnny must take his part in my life and his protection of me seriously, because of this: I made a Hispanic-looking retablo (shadow box) for my garden by the hermitage and put Johnny's old black Jesus carrying the Cross inside of it. It matched the bright, Hispanic-looking bird-feeder. It is hanging in front of my hermitage and facing the door so I can smile and say a prayer every time I go by. Since my Mom fell the other night and cracked her vertebrae I've needed to be inside the house with her instead of up on the hill in the hermitage. Yesterday I ran out to close the windows before the storm hit, and I laughed because my African Jesus carrying the Cross was turned around facing the house. The way this is hanging and set up, one would have to literally unhook the whole thing and flip it around or put a hand inside the box and physically flip the statue around -it is not knockable by animals. I laughed because it was just another sign that Johnny was keeping Jesus watching over me (he was with me in the hermitage, but now Jesus facing the house where I am.) I also had my lavender roses bloom (purple was his favorite color) and bright pink Gerber daisies that had died came back to life and bloomed -and Lisa brought Mom some more of them... (bright pink Gerber daisies were Johnny's favorite flower). Just funny how this kid who knew so well how to get into trouble has been working his tail off trying to stay present in my life and to help me in my vocation.

Ironically, David and Mikey Thomas (who are now grown men) stopped by here to see my Mom yesterday -May Johnny keep helping us all.

Resume for Mary Elizabeth Kloska

Can be found by clicking on here.

(I keep this on top because people were looking for a place to find it online and other accounts were being hacked... sorry to anyone this annoys.
Also, the spacing keeps changing on it -sorry for the inconsistency.)