All posts tagged: God

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, …

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 …

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 …

Session 61: Finding Our True Selves

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FACING OUR IMMORTALITY Sr.AnneMarie Walsh is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Finding Our True Selves Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/6516969698?pwd=WWQ4dndGQnVyTGx6SW1Hc0RrMjM3UT09 Meeting ID: 651 696 9698/Passcode: 246122 FINDING OUR TRUE SELVES Blessed Carlo Acutis, the young Catholic, Italian website designer who died of Leukemia at 15 years of age while living a holy life in the modern world, observed that “All people are born as originals, but many die as photocopies.” This is a problem if we understand that God has a master plan for our happiness but that many people do not, knowingly or unknowingly, choose to follow it.   Blessed Carlo understood this.  His plan for life was to stay close to Jesus and allow Jesus to unfold his life and its unique purpose.  It wasn’t a long life, but it was one in which he could say:  “…in eternal life, something extraordinary awaits us.”  “I am happy to die because I have lived my life without wasting a minute on those things which do not please God.”  He also understood that …

Notoriety And The Love Of God: Spiritual Exercise 02/13/23

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Please join us for our upcoming session with Sr. Anne Marie Walsh, SOLT. It takes place Monday 02/13/23 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm mountain time. Please click the link below for automatic entry. God Bless you. Click on Zoom: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/4537185699?pwd=emRVOEZwMTY1eGN1bzYrU2VldWhiZz09 Opening Prayer: The Memorare REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen Notoriety and the Love of God It is hard to fathom that today’s world does not want God. It mirrors the fundamental struggle of our individual souls, the battle between being self-centered and being centered in God and His Presence in our lives and the life of the world. Scott Barry Hoffman reported in the Scientific American that …

The Work Of Suffering: Spiritual Exercise 08/08/22

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Please join us Monday 08/08/22 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm MT (8:30 pm to 10:00 pm ET). Click on Zoom: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/4537185699?pwd=emRVOEZwMTY1eGN1bzYrU2VldWhiZz09 Opening Prayer: The Memorare REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen The Work of Suffering Is there any real purpose to suffering? Why is there so much of it? What good can possibly come from it? These are questions humanity has asked almost from the beginning of time. No one goes through life without experiencing suffering in one form or other many times over. Sorrow and woe are woven into our existence here whether we like it (and most don’t) or not. But what good is it? …

Finding The True Peripheries: Spiritual Exercise 06/13/22

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Please join us Monday 06/13/22 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm MT (8:30 pm to 10:00 pm ET). Click on Zoom: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/4537185699?pwd=emRVOEZwMTY1eGN1bzYrU2VldWhiZz09 Opening Prayer: The Memorare REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen Finding The True Peripheries From the beginning of his Pontificate, Pope Francis began speaking about the Church’s call to go out to the peripheries in its evangelization efforts. Even before he was elected, Cardinal Bergoglio had said, “The church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries, not only geographically, but also the existential peripheries: the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance and indifference to religion, of intellectual …

Reflections On Kindness: Spiritual Exercise 05/09/22

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Please join us Monday 05/09/2022 from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm MT (8:30 pm to 10:00 pm ET). ✝️🕍 Click on Zoom: https://us05web.zoom.us/j/4537185699?pwd=emRVOEZwMTY1eGN1bzYrU2VldWhiZz09 Opening Prayer: The Memorare REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen Reflections on Kindness Fr. Frederick William Faber (1814-1863) “Man has considerable powers, considerable enough to leave him, as proprietor of this planet. He has one power in particular, which is not sufficiently dwelt on. It is the power of making the world happy, or, at least, of so greatly diminishing the amount of unhappiness in it as to make it quite a different world from what it is at present. This power is called kindness.  …