Going Home

          A friend of mine was telling me about a trip her son was on; he was doing some traveling out west.  She misses him because he lives out of town and she doesn’t get to see him much.  He was telling her how beautiful everything is in Washington, Oregon and Idaho and said he was having a great time.  She was happy he was having a good time, but said, “I, very selfishly, don’t want him to like it too very much as he has previously spoken about moving out that way.”  Meaning he’d be even further away.

            It struck me that our Father in heaven must feel the same way about us.  He created everything on earth for us and He wants us to enjoy it, but he doesn’t want us to enjoy it so much that we are lead further away from Him.  He wants us to come home to heaven and if we live too much of this world and forget where we are destined to be, we may not make it.

            For some reason I thought about baseball and when the batter hits the ball and takes off for first base, but what’s his ultimate goal?  To get back home, where he started.  He should enjoy being at first base.  He should also keep his eye on second and third base, but his heart must remain true to home base. Even though he is on the right path, he can stray.  If he decides to rely on himself and steal the next base, because it looks so sweet, and doesn’t wait for his teammates to back him up, what can happen?  He can get caught and then he’s out!  All hope for home, getting that run, are gone as he bypasses home plate and goes to the dugout!

            Just as he should rely on his team to help him get home, so too do we need to rely on God’s team.  Jesus, Mary, Joseph and all the angels and saints.  They are all part of God’s team, just as we are.  They’ve already made it home, now they are there to cheer us on.

            Life is a journey and there are so many “plates” on our path to heaven.  God wants us to enjoy these “plates,” those “stops” in life, but He doesn’t want us to lose sight of home.

            Think about the things in your life that distract you from God and the home in heaven He has prepared for you.  Television is a great invention and can be used to great benefit.  Watching EWTN is awesome, we are encouraged on our journey home by watching this type of broadcasting.  But when we start flipping channels and watching such things that glorify and even celebrate a life turned away from God, we risk being caught in between bases and sent to the dugout.  Is thirty minutes of “excitement” worth the dugout?

            Even the good things can be overdone.  Going to mass, praying, adoration.  These are all good and holy things to keep us on the path to home base.  But in excess, to the extent that we neglect our vocation in life; such as when a spouse spends all their time in church instead of taking care of their family, then we risk not returning to home base.  A friend calls this spiritual gluttony.  When we focus on God and our own personal faith lives to the exclusion of all else.

            Anytime we seek our own pleasures above all else, we lose sight of God, who is in heaven waiting for us.  He wants us to come home, he longs for us.  He gave us an angel of our own to guide, guard and protect us while we are here on earth.  Why?  Because even if we take our eyes off heaven, our guardian angel always has his eyes on God and he will lead us back, ever so gently.  He’s like the 3^rd base coach telling you to stay put.  If you listen, you’ll be safe, if you forge ahead without regard to that guidance, you greatly increase your risk of not making it home.

            What a shame to stray from the path, it’s much harder to find your way back once you’ve strayed.  Not impossible, just more difficult.  One of my favorite scriptures passages is James 4:8, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

            It’s a simple desire; that our children return home to us; because we love them and believe they belong at home.  It may be a selfish desire, but it’s borne of the great love we have for our children.  The only greater love is that which our Father has for us and His selfish desire that we come home to Heaven.

Filling the Gaps

One evening I sat quietly before our Eucharistic Lord and asked Him what he would like to share with a prayer group meeting I would very soon be talking to. He very simply and quietly replied, “Love me.” A plea for love. That’s His message to us and it truly has been for centuries. If you’ll remember, He asked the same thing when He was crucified, although His words then were, “I thirst.”

He was grossly misunderstood while He hung nailed to that cross. When He said, “I thirst” what happened? The answer can be found in Psalm 69:21 “…and for my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.” And in John 19:29, “A bowl full of vinegar stood there.”

I often pray, “Jesus, please fill in the gap between the love I have received and the love I need.” As I sat before the Lord that night, I prayed. “Jesus, help me to fill in the gap between the love You have received and the love You need.” I looked up at our Lord and it struck me how little love our Lord is shown. Even by those of us who profess to love Him. How often do we give vinegar to our Lord instead of true drink? Complaining about the crosses He lovingly gives us instead of embracing them. Ignoring the needs of those around us and thinking only about ourselves? Watching hour upon hour of television instead of sitting with Him in adoration?

Jesus, help me to fill in the gap between the love You have received and the love You need.

I asked our Lord how to fill in that gap and he told me four things. Sacrifices. Prayer. Trust. Mary. I’ll start with sacrifices because we must offer sacrifices to our Lord for the conversion of sinners and for ourselves. What love we show Him by sacrificing ourselves, even in our small human ways. Denying ourselves that second cup of coffee in the morning, staying 5 extra minutes after Mass in thanksgiving, eating peanut butter and jelly for dinner instead of treating ourselves to a night out. We can even say, Lord, I really want a diet Coke, but for love of You I will deny myself and ask for the conversion of sinners. There are countless ways to offer small sacrifices to our Lord to show Him our love for Him.

Two, He wants us to pray. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, “Pray without ceasing.” Everything we do can be done in prayer. Little aspirations said throughout the day, “Sweet heart of Jesus, be my love.” Jesus meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto thine. “Oh Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” The rosary, the Divine Mercy chaplet, the Mass. Pray a Hail Mary for the person in the car next to you at the stop light or in front of you at the checkout counter. Remember to offer the Mass you attend for someone, the Holy Souls, offer it in thanksgiving for all the graces received, offer it for the priests or for your spouse and children. You can even offer it for the person who is suffering most in the world right at that moment. Simply saying the name of Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Much sweeter to Him than vinegar.

At the end of the Divine Mercy chaplet we proclaim, Jesus, I trust in You. So the third thing is Jesus wants us to trust Him. We hear in Jeremiah 19:11-12, “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! Plans to give you a future full of hope. When you call me, when you go to pray to me, I will listen to you.”

Fourth, turn to His Holy Mother in all things. She alone can fill the gap between the love He has received and the love He needs but she and Jesus desire us to fill it. With our sacrifices, our prayers and our complete trust in His divine plan for us. Mother Mary is our greatest intercessor because Jesus cannot resist His mother. Mary can take our prayers and offer them perfectly to her son. Talk to Mary throughout the day and ask her assistance in all things.

It is not in loving ourselves that the world will be transformed, it is in loving others. Love equals action and the more we love, the more we are moved to action. We should be willing to do anything for our Lord. Matthew 25:40 says, “Amen I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” He didn’t tell us that we love Him by loving ourselves, but by loving others. Sacrifices. Prayer. Trust. Mary. In Luke 10:27 we read, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.”

I pray to be able to truly say as St. Faustina did, “O my Jesus, You know, You alone know well that my heart knows no other love but You."

Jesus, please fill in the gap between the love I have received and the love I need. It is a beautifully versatile prayer. Jesus, help me to fill in the gap between the love You have received and the love You need. To show our love of others we can pray, Jesus, please fill in the gap between the love my enemy needs and the love they have received.

Ask Mother Mary to help you love her Son more, to pray more fervently, to make purer sacrifices and to trust more completely.

Ask yourself:

Am I loving Jesus in everything I do?

Am I bringing the love of Jesus into everything I do?

Am I fulfilling the third of otehrs or offering vinegar by holding grudges, getting angry and making snide comments?

Am I offering sacrifices throughout the day?

“Pray, don’t worry.” St. Padre Pio

Unpacked and ready for take off....

Have you ever taken your “dream” trip?  There is so much to do to prepare for any trip, making the arrangements, packing, taking time off work, etc.  There is so much to do before leaving that you wonder if you’ll ever get it all done. 

I’m preparing for a trip now.  Heaven.  We are all preparing for this trip actually – I mean hopefully.  Jesus has prepared a room for us in His father’s house.  Everything is all set for us on the receiving end, we just need to do our preparations.  This is no ordinary trip though and so our preparations will not be ordinary either.

For one thing, we don’t need to pack for heaven.  In fact, we need to unpack before we go.  The unpacking is so much harder than the packing we are used to, but the rewards are worth it.

If you are anything like me, you’ve accumulated “stuff” over the years and you probably think that either you need it, or you might one day need it, so you don’t even consider getting rid of it.  It seems harmless to keep these things around, especially if you have the storage space but let me tell you why you should get rid of all of it.  Because if you don’t use it, but insist on keeping it, you have an unnatural attachment to it.  Attachment to temporal items does us no good whatsoever.  Get rid of it!  If you haven’t used it for a year, or two years or five years, it is extremely unlikely you will need it one year from now, two years from now or five years from now.  If by some off chance you find one day you do need it, you’ll likely be surprised at how you cope without it.

We keep things because it makes us feel good, like we’re in control of things.  Well, get rid of it.  If you think you can’t live without something, get rid of it.  Don’t let “stuff” control you (and I do mean stuff, not your children or spouse!).  We cannot be attached to things of this earth.  Earthly attachments need to be unpacked right now.

One really important thing we should be unpacking before we go to heaven is unforgiveness.  You’ll never make it through “customs” with unforgiveness in your luggage, even if it’s one thing.  You will be rerouted to a holding area and if you’ve ever had that happen to you, you know it feels like an eternity before you’re released!

You need to forgive everyone.  The first grade teacher who made you stand in a corner, your mom for believing your sister when she was the one lying, your sister for lying, the repair man who was late and made you miss a meeting, even ourselves for the things we have done wrong.  Ask the Holy Spirit to bring to your mind all those you need to forgive and then lift them up to Jesus and tell Him you forgive them.

Pride is another thing to unpack and don’t think you can sneak by with that one because pride has a stench and they’ll smell it on you before you reach the check in counter.  They’ll take you so deep into the holding area you’ll feel like you’re next to the boiler!  You are not the most important person in the universe, God is, and you better be treating Him that way.  If you are putting yourself first then that means God isn’t.    You’ll need to start working on unpacking that right now because pride likes to stick around and it’s hard to get rid of. 

I have found the best place to unpack is the confessional.  Picture yourself being sprayed with a spiritual “Shout It Out” before you go into the confessional.  As long as you’ve confessed everything, then absolution sends you back out nice and clean and fresh.  There is no limit on how often you can use the confessional to unpack and in fact, the more frequently you go, the cleaner you’ll be and the lighter your luggage gets.  If it happens that you’re departure date is moved up, you’ll be ready to go anytime and you should be ready to go anytime, whether you had a departure date in mind yourself or not.

There are many, many things that need to be unpacked and since we are all so different, what I need to unpack will be different than what you need to unpack.  Ask the Holy Spirit what’s in your luggage so that when you arrive at the pearly gates, your bags are completely unpacked.