5th Sunday of Easter (B)

Short Reflection for the 5^th Sunday of Easter (B)

Readings:  Acts 9: 26- 31; 1 John 3: 18-24; John 15: 1-8

Selected Passage: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you” (John 15: 7)

Short Reflection: The challenge to each one of us is to remain steadfast in the faith both in good times as well as in bad times.  The gospel tells us we to connected to Jesus in order to bear much fruit.  The Father is the vine grower and we submit to his way of making us productive.  www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1.    Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…

2.   Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 

3.   Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

Our Unfinished Symphony

OUR UNFINISHED SYMPHONY
Thomas Aquinas taught that “every choice is a renunciation” and that is why commitment, particularly a life-long commitment in marriage, is so difficult.

Karl Rahner famously stated: “In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable, we finally learn that here in this life all symphonies must remain unfinished.”

And those of us who are old enough remember the haunting line in the old Salve Regina prayer: “To thee to we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.”

What each of these captures, in essence, is that in this life there is not such a thing as clear-cut pure joy and that we will live more peacefully and happily if we can accept that and not put false pressure on life, on our loves ones, and on God, to give us the full symphony right now.

Every day of their lives, my parents prayed words to the effect that, this side of eternity, they were “mourning and weeping in a valley of tears”. It didn’t make them sad, morbid, or stoic. The opposite: It gave them the tools that they needed to accept life’s real limits and the real limits and imperfections within community, church, family, and marriage. They were happier for knowing and accepting that.

My worry is that today we aren’t equipping our own children in thesame way. Instead, too often, we are helping them nurse the false expectation that, if they do it right, they can have it all already in this life. All that is needed is to have the right body, the right career, the right city, the right neighborhood, the right friends, the right vacations, and the right soul mate and they can have the full symphony here and now.

It’s not to be had, and Anita Brookner’s maxim that in marriage we “cannot not disappoint each other” simply states, in secular language, that no one, no matter how good, can be God for somebody else.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser
http://ronrolheiser.com/our-unfinished-symphony/…
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Our Unfinished Symphony | Ron Rolheiser

“Our life is a short time in expectation, a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment. There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our life. It seems that there is no such thing as a clear-cut pure joy, but that even in the most happy moments of our existence...

RONROLHEISER.COM

4th Sunday of Easter (B): Good Shepherd

Short Reflection for the 4th Sunday of Easter (B): Good Shepherd Sunday

Readings: Acts 4: 8-12; I John 3: 1-2; John 10: 11-18

Selected Passage: “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep." (John 10: 14 - 15)

Meditation: We are, indeed, called to become THAT GOOD SHEPHERD with the people entrusted to our care and service. A good shepherd defends his sheep; he protects them from danger and death; and he lays down his life for them.

Visit www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1. Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…
2. Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips.
3. Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

Simplifying our Spiritual Vocabulary

SIMPLIFYING OUR SPIRITUAL VOCABULARY

The struggle to forgive, I suspect, is our greatest psychological, moral, and religious struggle.  It’s not easy to forgive. Most everything inside of us protests. When we have been wronged, when we have suffered an injustice, when someone or something has treated us unfairly, a thousand physical and psychological mechanisms inside of us begin clam-up, shut-down, freeze- over, self-protect, and scream-out in protest, anger, and rage. 

Forgiveness is not something we can simply will and make happen. The heart, as Pascal once said, has its reasons. It also has its rhythms, its paranoia, its cold bitter spots, and its need to seal itself off from whatever has wounded it.

All of us have been wounded. No one comes to adulthood with his or her heart fully intact. In ways small or traumatic, we have all been treated unjustly, violated, hurt, ignored, not properly honored, and unfairly cast aside. We all carry wounds and, with those wounds, we all carry some angers, some bitterness, and some areas within which we have not forgiven.

The strength of Henri Nouwen’s greatest book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, was precisely to point out both the hidden cold places in our hearts and the mammoth struggle needed to bring warm and forgiveness to those places.

So much of the lightness or heaviness in our hearts, most every nuance of our mood, is unconsciously dictated by either the forgiveness or the non-forgiveness inside us.

Forgiveness is the deep secret to joy. It is also the ultimate imperative.

To read more click here or copy this address into your browser
http://ronrolheiser.com/simplifying-our-spiritual-vocabulary/#.Wszcc9PwZUQ
www.facebook.com/ronrolheiser

3rd Sunday of Easter (B)

Short Reflection for the 3^rd Sunday of Easter (B)

Readings: Acts 3: 13-15. 17-19; 1 John 2: 1-5a; Luke 24: 35-48

Selected Passage: “And he said to them, thus it is written that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things." (Luke 24: 45-48)

Meditation: We are, indeed, witnesses of the life, teachings and deeds of the Risen Lord.  Post Resurrection, we no longer see the physical face or look of the Risen Lord, yet we see and recognize him in good works done for the least of our brothers and sisters – food to the hungry; drink to the thirsty; clothes to the naked; visit the sick and prisoners; home to the strangers.  The disciples recognized the Risen Lord when they gave the stranger shelter and meal to the hungry. Right at the very act of breaking/sharing of the bread, they recognized the Risen Lord.

Visit www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1.    Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…

2.   Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 

3.   Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…

2nd Sunday of Easter (B): Divine Mercy Sunday

Short Reflection for the 2^nd Sunday of Easter (B): Divine Mercy Sunday

Readings: Acts 4,32-35; 1 John 5,1-6; John 20,19-31

Selected Passage: “Jesus said to him, "Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed." (John 20:29)

Meditation: Believing is not a question of seeing and touching.  It is a question of TRUST! We believe in the testimony of the apostles and disciples – the companions of Jesus.  They saw and believe that Jesus is truly RISEN from the dead. 

This is the faith handed over by the apostles and disciples from one generation to another. We do believe that the Resurrection of Jesus is the testimony that in the end, we, too, shall be victorious over sin and death.  The Divine Mercy Sunday proclaims the RICHNESS and the BOUNDLESS MERCY of God!

www.badaliyya.blogspot.com

DHIKR SIMPLE METHOD...

Dhikr is an Arabic word for remembrance. In the “tariqa” (the way) movement, dhikr developed into a form of prayer… It is a prayer of the heart… following three simple steps:

1.    Write in one’s heart a certain passage of the Holy Writ…

2.   Make the same passage ever present in one’s lips. 

3.   Then wait for God’s disclosure on the meaning of the passage…that interprets one’s life NOW…!

It takes a week of remembering (dhikr)…or even more days to relish the beauty of this method…