This is a poem by Justin Amyx. When I read this it sends shivers down my spine and I just can't stop thinking about it.
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
Rent asunder,
From the inside out,
I here the unborn child shout,
“Save us from the knife of sin”,
Why do they have to plead,
For our mercy,
Why do they fear pain and insecurity,
They should have been safe,
But now the door is open,
The mother sits in a chair,
She dose nothing but stare,
Remembering how it felt,
As they ripped a part of her away,
Again and again,
She will feel the pain,
She will feel her loss,
The laughter that she should have heard,
Now echo’s in her mind,
Now the earth is dead and rent asunder,
Her sin increases 200 fold,
As others follow her into sin,
What have we done,
The monster that’s unleashed in that dark and lonely room,
Grows and grows,
Tearing this world apart,
Until the earth is dead and rent asunder,
The death toll rises into untold agony,
And now the is earth filled,
With the voices it will never hear,
The man that could have saved another,
Never lived to see this world,
And now they both are dead,
What have we done,
God forgive us,
The earth is dead and rent asunder,
If we delete the meaning of love,
Then love and life will fade away,
The more who join in this sin,
The more we will suffer,
No more to rescue us,
They died before their time,
Starting down a path,
Till the world burns in hells fire,
He has stolen our children,
He has stolen our future,
Don’t let Satan burn our world,
Don’t let him take our souls,
Our future or our children,
Oh God save us from,
A world that is dead and rent asunder.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Reflection on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ +
I found this on Catholic Answers and thought is was very interesting. Enjoy!
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
Reflection on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ +
The agony in the garden was really the agony in His mind. He suffered the passion in His mind before He suffered it in His body—to the point of actually affecting the latter by sweating blood. But from then on, it was His bodily suffering that affected His mental suffering.
At the base of all His suffering was the one thing that human beings dread the most: rejection. He was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter and abandoned by all the rest of His Apostles; those He had hand picked as His closest intimates. He was most rejected by those who put Him to death. They not only wanted Him dead, they wanted Him to suffer. They not only considered Him to be worth nothing, they considered Him to be worth minus nothing! This significance was not lost on Him. He felt fully the rejection as each physical agony reminded Him.
So we thank Him for joining us on our human journey and actually choosing to experience what we fear the most.
We thank Him for enduring the arrest and the cruelty of the guards and the Sanhedrin. We thank Him for enduring the cruelty of Pilate who allowed Him to be executed rather than risk his own political ruin—and for the cruelty of Herod who wanted to be entertained by having Him work a miracle. We thank Him for all the time He spent satisfying their preoccupation with themselves, just delaying His ultimate death. We thank Him for the anxiety of that night in a cell.
The next morning He was brutally scourged with such intensity and violence that He became as an aged man in a matter of minutes. His multiple wounds bloodied His entire body. The loss of so much blood not only severely weakened Him; it also caused a severe, throbbing headache that remained with Him for the duration.
We thank Him for this and for the mockery He received when they put a purple cloth on His shoulders and pushed a crown of thorns down into His head which intensified His headache. They blindfolded Him and slapped Him, insisting that He ‘prophesy’ who had hit Him. They spat on Him and beat Him. But it was they who were blind. He knew who they were. This is what we do when we sin. We blot him out of our consciousness as if He can’t see us. But it is we who choose to not see.
He stood at the praetorium in utter disgrace according to the attitude of the crowd—while in reality, He stood in utter glory: almighty God, being present to every person who has ever suffered rejection, joining them in their
moment of pain. It was there that He was sentenced to death by crucifixion. As a further humiliation, He was forced to carry His instrument of execution. He revealed to St. Bernard that carrying the cross was His most painful agony. He was so weak, He could hardly walk. So the weight of the cross on His shoulder was unbearable. It most likely dislocated His shoulder. It is not surprising that He fell down on the stone streets that were filthy with animal dung—with the cross on top of Him. And He got up each time.
It was only with the help of Simon of Cyrene that He made it to the top of Calvary. There they drove the nails into the carpal tunnels of His hands, causing pain throughout His upper body. The nail in His feet registered great pain through all the sensitive nerves there. When the cross was righted, His up-stretched arms squeezed His lungs and He began to pant for lack of oxygen. So He had to push down on His crucified feet to push His body up in order to fill His lungs with air. This took great effort because He was so weak. Yet He managed to maintain such effort for three hours of agony which increased gradually as He became weaker moment by moment.
By the end of the third hour, His agony was at its peak and His self-gift was exquisite. He had come to the point where His strength simply gave out and He suffocated. In this eternal moment as He died, He gave us His life. Transcending time, this moment of divine love is present to us in the tabernacles of the world.
Thank you, Lord. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. By your holy cross, you have redeemed the world!
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
Reflection on the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ +
The agony in the garden was really the agony in His mind. He suffered the passion in His mind before He suffered it in His body—to the point of actually affecting the latter by sweating blood. But from then on, it was His bodily suffering that affected His mental suffering.
At the base of all His suffering was the one thing that human beings dread the most: rejection. He was betrayed by Judas, denied by Peter and abandoned by all the rest of His Apostles; those He had hand picked as His closest intimates. He was most rejected by those who put Him to death. They not only wanted Him dead, they wanted Him to suffer. They not only considered Him to be worth nothing, they considered Him to be worth minus nothing! This significance was not lost on Him. He felt fully the rejection as each physical agony reminded Him.
So we thank Him for joining us on our human journey and actually choosing to experience what we fear the most.
We thank Him for enduring the arrest and the cruelty of the guards and the Sanhedrin. We thank Him for enduring the cruelty of Pilate who allowed Him to be executed rather than risk his own political ruin—and for the cruelty of Herod who wanted to be entertained by having Him work a miracle. We thank Him for all the time He spent satisfying their preoccupation with themselves, just delaying His ultimate death. We thank Him for the anxiety of that night in a cell.
The next morning He was brutally scourged with such intensity and violence that He became as an aged man in a matter of minutes. His multiple wounds bloodied His entire body. The loss of so much blood not only severely weakened Him; it also caused a severe, throbbing headache that remained with Him for the duration.
We thank Him for this and for the mockery He received when they put a purple cloth on His shoulders and pushed a crown of thorns down into His head which intensified His headache. They blindfolded Him and slapped Him, insisting that He ‘prophesy’ who had hit Him. They spat on Him and beat Him. But it was they who were blind. He knew who they were. This is what we do when we sin. We blot him out of our consciousness as if He can’t see us. But it is we who choose to not see.
He stood at the praetorium in utter disgrace according to the attitude of the crowd—while in reality, He stood in utter glory: almighty God, being present to every person who has ever suffered rejection, joining them in their
moment of pain. It was there that He was sentenced to death by crucifixion. As a further humiliation, He was forced to carry His instrument of execution. He revealed to St. Bernard that carrying the cross was His most painful agony. He was so weak, He could hardly walk. So the weight of the cross on His shoulder was unbearable. It most likely dislocated His shoulder. It is not surprising that He fell down on the stone streets that were filthy with animal dung—with the cross on top of Him. And He got up each time.
It was only with the help of Simon of Cyrene that He made it to the top of Calvary. There they drove the nails into the carpal tunnels of His hands, causing pain throughout His upper body. The nail in His feet registered great pain through all the sensitive nerves there. When the cross was righted, His up-stretched arms squeezed His lungs and He began to pant for lack of oxygen. So He had to push down on His crucified feet to push His body up in order to fill His lungs with air. This took great effort because He was so weak. Yet He managed to maintain such effort for three hours of agony which increased gradually as He became weaker moment by moment.
By the end of the third hour, His agony was at its peak and His self-gift was exquisite. He had come to the point where His strength simply gave out and He suffocated. In this eternal moment as He died, He gave us His life. Transcending time, this moment of divine love is present to us in the tabernacles of the world.
Thank you, Lord. We adore you O Christ and we praise you. By your holy cross, you have redeemed the world!
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Off Beat Friday from the American Papist.
For generations, fish knew their rightful place in God's creation because faithful Catholics observed the tradition of eating them en masse every Friday.
Sure, the idea was to offer up the pleasures of eating meat as a penance one day out of the week, but frankly, those faithful Catholics still ate mammals six days out of the week.
So really, there could be no doubt in those tasty farmyard minds about who was the boss. I mean, have you ever witnessed a cow or pig try to attack someone? Of course not! Except maybe that one time (on a Friday - surprise, surprise).
Sure, give in to the dictatorship of relativism. Don't quit your Friday Lamb Kabob habit. Keep smugly visiting Sea World to watch dozens of eligible dinners wiggle around behind the Plexiglas unharmed and carefree.Anyway, fast-forward to 40 or so years after Vatican II, and it's clear that fish have forgotten our deal. The new generation of fishes, in fact, are now systematically, actively "testing the waters" to see if the time is ripe to have their turn at the top of the food chain.
Luckily, so far their attempts have been unsuccessful.
This week a 24-foot basking shark washed ashore on Long Island beach. Now of course naysayers will point out that the basking shark is harmless, has no teeth, and feeds primarily on plankton. Well, it also has a mouth big enough to swallow your little sister in one gulp. I'm just saying, I wouldn't let a basking shark into my little sister's swimming pool.
Unfortunate navigation error, or calculated reconnaissance mission?
Earlier this week, on the opposite coast, dozens of Jumbo Humbolt Squid washed up minutes after a 4.0 earthquake hit off the coast of La Jolla, California.
... sure people, earthquakes, like God never uses those to get a message across!
Before Vatican II, this squid would never have been allowed to grow bigger than sushi-roll size.
The local reporter in the case above was only too eager to leave the story high and dry:
"For now there are more questions than answers; did the earthquake cause the squid to wash up or was it simply a coincidence?"
Not surprisingly, the most disturbing case of underwater-based aggression to date has occurred in Europe, which is especially guilty of ignoring the admonition of the Church to eat fish on Fridays:
"Police divers have ended the reign of terror of a huge fish that was attacking swimmers in a Swiss lake.In other words, after biting six swimmers (presumably one each day), the fish rested from its nibbling on the seventh day, and was finally killed on that Sunday. Apparently even Zander fish have standards. So just what does that say about us? If the Zander fish had been eaten on Friday ... some Swiss kid would have kept on to his pinky finger on Saturday.
The zander, which was 70 centimetres (two feet three inches) long and weighed eight kilos (17.5 pounds), was harpooned on Sunday after it bit six swimmers over the weekend, fish warden Fabio Croci told local media."
My recommendation: bring an oven along with you on the boat. It just saves time.
In fairness, I was relieved to find out, upon reading the story of the Zander fish's reign-of-terror more closely, that its delectable remains were "served up to tourists at the lake." As the saying goes, an eaten fish is a happy fish.
After hearing about these examples of modern icthyan aggression, I think it should be very clear to all informed readers why we, as a community and a Church, need to make the serious effort of continuing the venerable tradition of consuming our scaly arch-enemies with reckless abandon every Friday.
After all, it's supposed to sound like "Fry-Day" for a reason.
If this fish were still alive, it would be asking you to eat it.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Sisters of Life.
Just for fun, I was perusing the Sisters of Life website, and I found these two quotes.
"The process of formation and development in the religious life has to be the process of the clay in the hands of the potter, the Divine Potter, Who shapes us uniquely to be filled with His Son, and yet each of us in a different way... If God wanted every religious to be exactly alike, then God would have created every human being exactly alike."
- John Cardinal O'Connor
Like a precious jewel that, when turned in different directions under the light of the sun, seems to take on new hues and strikingly different shades of beauty, so, too, each Sister, uniquely made in the image of God, gives a different gift, a new shade of beauty, when seen in the light of the Son.
These struck me because I have been feeling lately that my vocation story is not normal, I guess. When I read these quotes I realized that it's true, my vocation story isn't normal because I'm not like anyone else! This is true not only with religious life, but with every walk of like. There is NO ONE in the world who has your story. You are very unique and have your very own life story. I hope and pray that you use your unique life story to do some good in the world.
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
"The process of formation and development in the religious life has to be the process of the clay in the hands of the potter, the Divine Potter, Who shapes us uniquely to be filled with His Son, and yet each of us in a different way... If God wanted every religious to be exactly alike, then God would have created every human being exactly alike."
- John Cardinal O'Connor
Like a precious jewel that, when turned in different directions under the light of the sun, seems to take on new hues and strikingly different shades of beauty, so, too, each Sister, uniquely made in the image of God, gives a different gift, a new shade of beauty, when seen in the light of the Son.
These struck me because I have been feeling lately that my vocation story is not normal, I guess. When I read these quotes I realized that it's true, my vocation story isn't normal because I'm not like anyone else! This is true not only with religious life, but with every walk of like. There is NO ONE in the world who has your story. You are very unique and have your very own life story. I hope and pray that you use your unique life story to do some good in the world.
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sunday's second reading.
2 Cor 12:7-10
Brothers and sisters:
Brothers and sisters:
That I, Paul, might not become too elated,
because of the abundance of the revelations,
a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan,
to beat me, to keep me from being too elated.
Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me,
but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you,
for power is made perfect in weakness."
I will rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses,
in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me.
Therefore, I am content with weaknesses, insults,
hardships, persecutions, and constraints,
for the sake of Christ;
for when I am weak, then I am strong.
I've known since I was twelve that I'm going to be a nun. It came to my attention lately that I don't really fit in anywhere because I'm not thinking about or concerned with what most seventeen year old girls are thinking about or concerned with. It has been very hard for me to deal with. On Sunday the bold really stuck with me and I was thinking about how counter cultural the concept of being strongest when you are weak is. This started me thinking about how counter cultural being a nun is. I don't really know what I'm trying to say with this but I guess I want to encourage you all to keep going even though it's hard being so counter cultural.
JMJ+
~Betsy
Totus tuus Maria!
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