All posts filed under: Monthly Spiritual Exercise Group

LETTING GO

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People are anxious about many things these days.  When a person does not stay in a primary dependence upon God, it becomes clear quickly that any other dependency outside of God will lead to insecurity and an apprehensiveness that can take on a life of its own.  Perhaps the most common dependency that people use to replace their dependence upon God is found in materialism.   There is a reflection of this in the fall in the garden. Up until the time of the fall, Adam and Eve were happily and unselfconsciously dependent upon God.  With the decision to eat the forbidden fruit, they essentially detached themselves from God and attached themselves to the created world, drawn in by its beauty and seductive promises.   That is the nature of materialism.  We pursue possessions, etc., because we see the good in them, but at the same time, we over-value them in relation to God to the point where they usurp His place in our lives.  They become for us little gods or idols that are incompatible with trust in God.  It is not …

Hearing the Voice of God

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Hearing the Voice of God People sometimes complain that God doesn’t speak to them, or if he does, they don’t recognize his voice.   We all know stories of people who suddenly hear God speak to them in the midst of extraordinary or dramatic events.   That doesn’t surprise us as much as the idea that God speaks to us all the time.  Yet Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd and says His sheep know His voice.  So, what are we to make of this? It’s an important question to ask because God has fashioned us in such a way that our inner life is truly dependent on hearing His voice.  And He gives us that capacity from the time we are very young, though most of us don’t recognize it.  Generally speaking, the most fundamental way God speaks to us is through our consciences, which is why it is so essential to develop a rightly formed, even sensitive conscience.  We are greatly helped in this by remembering that the law of God is written in our hearts. Both the Old …

Language and Communion

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God has given us so many gifts, it’s hard not to take many of them for granted.  Yet none of the gifts God gives are superfluous.  They all have a purpose.  It would be an exercise in the likeness of Our Lady, to ponder the Lord’s gifts and to try to align ourselves with their particular purposes.  In some instances, the accountability for the gift is exceptionally high.  Language is one such gift. Jesus tells us that we will be accountable for every word we use.  Right away, that tells us that there is something extraordinary about language and our use of it that must be respected.  With a bit of reflection, it becomes apparent that language in all its forms is meant to serve communion, our communion with God and with others.  Likewise, it serves our own inner healing and integrity so that true communion actually becomes possible for us. Jesus gives such a beautiful example of this in His Resurrection appearances.  The apostles have been separated from the Lord by fear, by violence, …

Pilgrims of Hope

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In a time that needs the witness of Christian hope more than ever, our Holy Father, Pope Francis, says the following about hope:   it is a gift of God and a task for every Christian.  He explains that it is more than just “a mere act of optimism.”  Rather, it is “waiting for something that has already been given to us” (salvation and full communion with the Lord.)  What might that look like in the world of today?  Many years ago, while presenting the pro-life position to a group of high schoolers, one boy asked what could be wrong with abortion if you were saving a baby from a terrible life of unhappiness.  Our seminarian responded by pointing out that if we were to follow that logic, we should take a gun out and shoot everyone who is currently unhappy.  The young man was not operating from a vision of life informed by hope but rather from the belief that happiness and unhappiness are unchangeable and, in fact, the only thing that really matters.  He did not have the wisdom to see …

Please Join Us for Our Next Spiritual Exercise: Christian Resistance to Evil

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Sr.AnneMarie Walsh is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Sr.AnneMarie Walsh’s Zoom MeetingTime: Oct 14, 2024 06:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meetinghttps://zoom.us/j/95305999268?pwd=UQmUdWuZbdGwDCCnCu2d5T188lvShb.1 Meeting ID: 953 0599 9268Passcode: 241317 One tap mobile+16469313860,,95305999268# US+19292056099,,95305999268# US (New York) Dial by your location CHRISTIAN RESISTANCE TO EVIL – Session 66 The ordinary Christian knows something the unbeliever does not.  When Christians, especially Catholics, look at the state of the world, they know the primary source of evil is not cultural, political, or sociological.  It’s spiritual.  “For our struggle is not with flesh and blood but with the principalities, with the powers, with the world rulers of this present darkness, with the evil spirits in the heavens. Therefore, put on the armor of God, that you may be able to resist on the evil day and, having done everything, to hold your ground.”  Eph 6:12-13 As Catholics, we do not believe that anyone is born evil.  God creates us good.  We are, however, born wounded in the integrity of our nature because of the first sin.  The …

Becoming A True Prepper

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Becoming a True Prepper There is a whole industry today built around people’s anxiety to be prepared in the event of a catastrophic disaster, both natural and man-made.  How would you survive if there was a nuclear war, if there was an asteroid hit, or if the grid was completely knocked out? It’s the dilemma of Lazarus.  Jesus raised him from the dead at his sisters’ pleading.  But his reprieve from death was temporary.  He eventually had to be prepared to die again.  You can bet, though, that the time between his first death and second death served to detach him even more from this present life so that he was fully ready when it came time to die again.   You start thinking about these things when you assess the real-time threats we face.  It is true that we are called to read the signs of the time and be responsibly prepared.  But our goal has to be more than saving ourselves and our life here.  Jesus warns us that seeking to save ourselves …

The Leaders We Deserve

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 It’s often been said that God gives us the leaders we deserve. If that’s true, we should then do everything in our power to become worthy of good leaders. Everyone who grows anything knows that the stock you start out with is very important. If the stock is not healthy, it will not produce good fruit. Simply saying this, in a political season, can bring about the pressing temptation to pivot to our leaders and complain about our options. But the point is that reform begins with ourselves. If we want good leaders, we have to become good ourselves. It’s as simple as that. As a people, we produce our own leaders. But if we are trying to produce leadership without any connection to or real reference to God, and if the criteria for a good leader have become completely secularized, we are going to run right up against the impossibility of bringing anything good out of it.  God the Father is the source of every good gift, and if we are honest, we soon …

Join Us for Our Next Spiritual Exercise

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Sr.AnneMarie Walsh is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Monday, July 15, 2024, 6:30 pm mountain time; 7:30pm central Topic: Sr.AnneMarie Walsh’s Personal Meeting Room Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/6516969698?pwd=WWQ4dndGQnVyTGx6SW1Hc0RrMjM3UT09 Meeting ID: 651 696 9698 Passcode: 246122 — One tap mobile +16469313860,,6516969698# US +19292056099,,6516969698# US (New York) — Meeting ID: 651 696 9698 Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/ace2MfJLLg

A Phrase for Life

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Living life by a particular motto can have untold benefits.  Many of the saints had mottoes to which they oriented their entire lives.  “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?”  That motto spoke to St. Anthony of the desert as the conversion or turning point of his entire life.   We may be familiar with other mottoes, such as Padre Pio’s “Pray, hope, and don’t worry.” Or, Pope St. John Paul II, who entrusted his life to the care and protection of Our Blessed Moth and encapsulated this in his papal motto: “Totus Tuus,””,  meaning “Totally Yours.”  St. Junipero  Serra’s motto was “Always forward, never back.” Padre Miguel Pro, who was martyred for the faith in Mexico during the Cristero uprising against the government and who died by firing squad, proclaimed the motto he lived his life by:  “Viva Christo Re!” or, “Long live Christ the King.” Each of us lives our lives according to our beliefs and the way we understand life in general.  At the …