“O God, You are my God, for You I long; for You my soul is thirsting. My body pines for You like a dry, weary land without water, so I gave on You in the sanctuary to see Your strength and Your glory. For Your love is better than life, my lips will speak Your praise. So I will bless You all my life, in Your Name I will lift up my hands. My soul shall be filled as with a banquet, my mouth shall praise You Continue reading
“Have mercy on us, O God of all, and behold us; show us the light of Your mercies. Send Your fear upon the nations that have not sought after You: that they may know that there is no God beside You; and that they may show forth Your wonders. Lift up Your hand over the strange nations, that they may see Your power. For as You have been sanctified Continue reading
“Why, O God, have You cast us off for ever? Why blaze with anger at the sheep of Your pasture? Remember Your people whom You chose long ago, the tribe You redeemed to be Your own possession, the mountain of Zion where You made Your dwelling. Turn Your steps to these places that are utterly ruined! The enemy has laid waste the whole of the sanctuary. Your foes have made uproar Continue reading
God the Father is the Almighty Creator, the Alpha and Omega of the universe. Yet His softness is remarkable and tenderness unmistakeable in His intimate daily dealings with His children. Soft – a softness and tenderness unmatched elsewhere – can be said to best describe our Father within the function of His Paternality and Parentality. Gently caressing, infinitely loving and firmly Continue reading
The question was posed, “How do we draw upon the Father’s strength?” The answer is simple: invite Him with genuineness to be your Father and open your hearts unconditionally to Him. If you cannot presently do the latter, for some reason or another, ask God the Father for all the graces necessary to become able to do so and the Father will give them to you with great joy. Turn your lives over to Continue reading
“O give thanks to the Lord for He is good; for His love endures for ever. Who can tell the Lord’s mighty deeds? Who can recount all his praise? They are happy who do what is right, who at all times do what is just. O Lord, remember me out of the love You have for Your people. Come to me, Lord, with Your help that I may see the joy of Your chosen ones and may rejoice in the gladness of Your Continue reading
After the senseless tragedy which occurred in Newtown, Connecticut, whereby several elementary school children were killed, Benedict XVI “asks God, our Father, to console all those who mourn and to sustain the entire community with the spiritual strength which triumphs over violence by the power of forgiveness, hope and reconciling love” (Card. T. Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, 12/14/12, Statement from the Vatican).
“Be gracious to me, O Lord; for to You I cry all day. Rejoice the soul of Your servant; for to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. For You, Lord, are good and ready to pardon, and plenteous in mercy toward all who call upon You. Give ear, O HaShem, to my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I call upon You, for You will answer me. There is none like You among Continue reading
FOR THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER
Jesus Christ and Satan
You came in my dining room late that Tuesday morning, standing over six feet tall and dressed simply in Joseph’s striped, multicolored tunic (Gn 37:3). You came as the God-man who had walked on earth and it was the only time You appeared wearing Joseph’s tunic. You came seconds after Satan relentlessly attempted to throttle me with his claw-like hands as he yelled, “Renege! Renege!” in his raucous voice livid with fury and hate, while two demons grabbed me from either side and attempted to drag me down with them into the desolate abyss which leads to Hell – the place to which I had condemned myself for years on end. You came even though I had not specifically asked Continue reading
God our Father waits for us to return to Him, to live in His divine bosom – Infinite and tender Love forever; where Christ Himself lives. Who would not want that? Yet many of us – so many of us – do not want to return, to both our Father and our God, because we prefer doing things our own way, as though we are completely sufficient unto ourselves. A myth if ever there was one. How long, Continue reading
“Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for You, my God. My soul is thirsting for God, the living God” (Ps 41:2-3).
“Since it is from You, God our Father, that redemption comes to us, Your adopted children, look with favor on the family You love, give true freedom to us and to all who believe in Christ, and bring us all alike to our eternal heritage” (Prayer from the Office of Readings, 10th Sept.).
It is in the quiet, the stillness and the silence, that we can enter into the Upper Room of the heart of our souls, to meet God our Almighty Father. But our ability to enter effectively enter into the Upper Room depends upon the degree to which we allow ourselves to become purified, by accepting with all our hearts our Father’s graces.
Let us pray for all those who do not want to return to God our Almighty Father. Many do not want to return to Him and His Heart, His most beautiful and tender Divine Heart, is pierced with great and profound sorrow at their loss. Our Father loves them with all His might despite everything they do. Yet they do not want to return, preferring to remain lost; far away, very far away, from His tender Continue reading
“Bless HaShem, O my soul. HaShem, my God, You are very great, clothed in majesty and glory; covering Yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a pavilion” (Ps 104:1-2).
FOR THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER
You came that weekday morning in response to my question, “Is this church a (spiritually) safe place to be in?” A question I had been repeatedly but silently asking myself when I decided to return to the Church, after having attended Mass in some neighboring churches but in which heterodoxy and illicitness were both prevalent to some degree or another and unashamedly passed off as the new norm.
There you, the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God - given to me by your Son when you were at the foot of His Cross and by the Father’s Divine Will, to be also my Mother as the Mother of all mankind – suddenly stood, in the main aisle of the church; at the fifth pew from the Continue reading
“Nothing, after all, is greater than You; and yet You have given Yourself to us and given Yourself for us. Therefore . . . we pray to be given nothing other than You Yourself. You are everything to us, our life, our light, our health and strength, our food, our drink, our God” (St. Columbanus, Instructions).
“Let the righteous be glad, let them exult before God; yes, let them rejoice with gladness. Sing to God, sing a psalm of praise to His Name. Extol Him Who rides upon the skies, whose Name is HaShem and exult before Him; but the wicked shall be troubled by His Presence. A Father of the fatherless and a Protector of the widows, is God in His holy habitation. God makes the lonely and the solitary dwell in Continue reading
Father, please give us all the graces and blessings that you wish to give us this day, the grace to accept them and at least some of those graces and blessings that no one else wants; that are lying there, unused and unclaimed, in Your vast storehouse of graces. Thank You, O most beautiful and tender Father, for lovingly hearing our prayer. We love You, we adore You and we worship You.
The process
The following aptly describes the process by which we become capable of worshipping God the Father in Spirit and in Truth (cf. Jn 4:23-24), as He so longingly and longstandingly desires:
“God descends to man in two senses, although simultaneously. By one descent He places in us an activity of divine love for Him, by the other He opens Himself up before our love, which is from Continue reading
