I wrote a great post last night –much better than I can put together again now. But when I posted it my Facebook account froze and for 15 hours it won’t unfreeze, so I had to cancel the post.
My point was to share with you how God is tangible in His
Love and Graces to us –even if many are oblivious to His presence around us.
But just as God’s Hand is real in our lives, so is the reality of spiritual
warfare. There are actual evil spirits whose entire energy is put into messing
up the plan of God –and the plan of God for your lives. When they can’t get you
to sin, then they just try to annoy you… and that is when you have to turn them
against themselves –laugh –offer up the inconveniences of the cross and trust
that God is ultimately in control.
I had a friend recently tell me that I should do an entire
podcast about the miracles God does in my life –not all people experience God’s
presence (and satan’s attack) as physically as I have at various times in my
life –but it is something that is just as real in all of your lives as it is
for me. Although the spiritual life is something usually left to faith
(invisible), at times God allows us to see evidence of it in order to build our
faith and strengthen our resolve to be committed to living out His Will no
matter the cost.
I will share just a small portion of the pictures I have of
miracles and warfare that I experienced the past few months. As I was cleaning
out the pictures on my camera I realized I had quite a bit of this captured on
film. I hope that this builds your faith in God’s presence in your lives, too…
and quickens your step in your battle against the evil one who really doesn’t
want for you to be holy.
Roses: St. Therese of Lisieux sends me roses when I pray to
her for direction. She also sometimes makes me simply smell them everywhere –which
is what happened last week as I finished a novena. Since I didn’t receive
physical roses from her (nor Jesus) I went and bought myself some at Walmart.
But about a week later I was teasing them about not even showing up with roses
for me and I was reminded that I had some on my cupboard. I retorted, “But I
had to buy them for myself.” And in my heart I heard Jesus say, ‘Not the white
ones.’ When I looked at the bouquet that I bought I saw that the purple ‘filler
flowers’ had bloomed these beautiful little white rose like flowers from their
center. I don’t know what kind of flower that was and if that was normal for them
to do or not, but I truly felt like Jesus had given me these white roses as His
sign of love and as an answer to my intention.
The gold corpus: Lots of my rosaries and stuff turns gold…
its just a sign that God is with me and its cool. The corpus on the relic of
the true Cross that I have worn around my neck for 15 years turned gold
immediately upon me putting it on the first time. Well, a few months ago when I
woke up in the morning I noticed that the corpus was gone. I couldn’t find it
and I changed into running clothes, but before I left for my parent’s house I
looked in the bed one more time and found the corpus. When I arrived at my
parents my Dad noticed that I had a corpus imprinted on my sweatshirt. And I
did… but I had not been wearing that sweatshirt while I slept the night before.
I had put it on after the corpus was gone. It was almost as if Jesus wanted to
make sure that I still had an image of Him around my neck.
Lights at the cemetery: When I visited my brother’s grave
around the time of the anniversary of his death last April these blue lights
appeared in every picture I took. I felt as if it was him or an angel or God
just saying that they were present with me praying there. Ironically, my grave
someday will be to his left.
Oiling Holy Pictures/Papers: A couple of months ago
(November) I moved apartments. As I was cleaning out my cupboard next to my bed
I noticed that I had a pile of holy cards/writing mixed in with my tax papers
and other important documents. But what was amazing was that the holy card I
had of St. Therese was oozing oil –as was the holy card of St. Francis of Paola
(the hermit patron saint against the demons of jealousy and lies) –and many of
the papers I had written words from Jesus on. I won’t share them all because
many of them are private, but here are a few of them. When they continued to
ooze oil a week later my Dad came over to investigate. It was really amazing.
Even the envelope holding my baptism/confirmation certificates were wet. BUT...
the tax papers and other secular documents that were laying on top of and
underneath the oozing stuff were totally dry. Just cool.
And although sometimes God does miracles in a tangible way
to get our attention, sometimes He also allows the evil one’s battle against us
to be tangible just to strengthen our resolve to fight harder. Satan only makes
noise where God’s will is being done. Those of you who pray the rosary with me
in the morning have seen several times when my camera went flying to the floor
as if it had been knocked during the rosary. In fact, that happened during my
podcast about the Infant Crucified Christ two weeks ago. That must have been a
powerful podcast, because when I finished recording and went to the bedroom to
finish uploading it, a crash came from the kitchen and the icon I had used of
Mother Mary with the Child Jesus with a cross behind him had been thrown from
the wall literally across the room and broken in half. A total bummer… my Dad (a
woodsman) wasn’t able to fix it –he said that it was broken in a very strange
way. I consider it a battle wound for Mary and Jesus and simply fiat. Other
times statues, (plants? –go figure) and icons will be thrown down and broken. I
always take it as a sign that I am doing something right. Several months ago
when I finished an important work I went running and almost stepped on a blue
racer snake –I had never seen such a snake in the 40 years I lived in that
neighborhood growing up, nor anywhere in Indiana for that matter. Other times
its just computer problems that come from nowhere –one day I emailed a priest a
list of topics/questions for an interview we were going to have and he received
all of the letters on top of each other. Other times my computer will freeze
and flash three sixes… I just laugh and move on… but I share this because it
shows you that the war for your soul is real.
St. Catherine of Siena said, ‘Be who God created you to be
and you will set the world on fire!’ Satan doesn’t want that… so he fights you
in the ordinary stuff of life to keep you from being holy. But always remember,
like you see in these pictures, just as the battle is real –so is Jesus’ Grace.
It is so awesome to know that we have a Savior and He ALREADY WON.
I hope this feeds your faith…
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