faith – Page 175 – hugsnblessings

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

Published on January 26, 2015August 3, 2023 by Dawn Marie3 Comments

As I mentioned in the Page description of the Menu on my toolbar entitled Divine Mercy, I spent the past year (2014) reading the entire Diary of St. Faustina (Helena) Kowalska. I hope to spend this next year writing on my personal reflections from that experience and some of the many individual life lessons I took away from this.

This will be my first reflection piece from that experience…

When I began this committment I knew it would be important for me to stay organized, so that I could track my obligation to read 5 entries per day. (Yes, my God gifted me with a few anal-retentive tendencies; however, I prefer to acknowledge that He simply designed me to be “efficiently organized.”)

A selection of entries from the Diary of St. Faustina

As I began reading through her beautiful Diary I knew I would need a way to track & monitor my daily reading commitment. I was inspired to scribble in the sidebar of my copy of the Diary the month (listed at the top) & the day (written directly below this) at the beginning of each day’s commitment. So…the number 3, Day 23; represented March the 23rd as my reference point. The following day’s commitment would then be scribbled at the start of the next “5 entry” series and so on. This pattern quickly proved to work well because it afforded me the ability to always stay on track with a concrete reference point! (Especially with my ever-aging memory!)

On the random occassion, when unexpected situations prevented me from that particular day’s 5 prescribed readings, (yes I must admit that there were infrequent times when I would need to make up for a 2 or 3 day commitment at one sitting!) I could still easily reference my self-prescribed obligation! Also, by mapping out each day’s 5 entry logs, I gave myself the opportunity to look back for those entries which really impacted me, or perhaps tied into reflections I would later make in the days or months that lay ahead.

There was a great calm in the orderliness of it all. And as I begin this year (2015) of personal reflection on the many graces I’ve been given from having read the Diary, there is a fondness in seeing the scribblings of the date when these moments impacted my life & created change for me.

These dates remind me that we truly do not know the hour, the time, or the place, when God’s hand will reach out and transform our hearts with the message he has in store for us. In the writings of Matthew, Chapters 24 & 25, he reminds us we must always watch for Him…

“Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Matthew 25:13

When I began the commitment to read St. Faustina’s Diary I had no idea what lay in store and the multitude of messages my God would convey to me. Yet, He knew all along! And thumbing through the Diary yet again…I am in awe of the grace and mercy He has shown me. And I embrace where-ever it is He is now leading me in my visitation of this past year’s journey.

On the 29th day of January I read one of the more impactful entries for myself (each entry made by Saint Faustina is carefully documented numerically.) This particular entry influenced my entire experience with reading the Diary. (Saint) Faustina wrote this entry herself on the 1st of January in 1937 and I used it often to carry & focus me throughout each month of 2014 and still today. (See my Post entitled, Inner Silence; which is a reflection on entry 162, found in her personal Diary on page 77.)

Ultimately, St. Faustina’s Diary is the record of her life experience –the journey of her soul. She was graced by a special communion with God, and the Diary expressed her conviction that this communion ought to be the center of our lives.

Each of us have the ability to experience the power of the Blood and Water that poured out from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy…for us. We must learn to trust in this mercy so that it may help us to find the confidence and peace in the ever-present love of God.

755 O my Jesus, teach me to open the bosom of mercy and love to everyone who asks for it. Jesus, my Commander, teach me so that all my prayers and deeds may bear the seal of Your mercy.

hugs n’ blessings!

3-D

Published on January 22, 2015August 17, 2015 by Dawn Marie1 Comment

“Three things in Human Life Are important;

The first is to be kind.

The second is to be kind.

The third is to be kind.”

-St. Mother Teresa

Music by: JJ Heller

“Pleased to meet you, Monica.” Said Rita.

Published on January 21, 2015January 23, 2015 by Dawn Marie3 Comments

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Pleased to Meet You.”

One of my bucket list items is to take time to read more for pleasure. I tend to read to learn something. Usually about my faith, or those who help me to live out my faith. (Role-models.) Many of the Saints are these for me.

I don’t think there’s some deep dark physiological reason why I no longer read much for pleasure. (There must be worse things than this, right?) As a child/teenager I only read for pleasure! It was a wonderful form of therapy for me, (which often helped me to escape from the sometimes dramatic life of my childhood.)

Every year at the start of summer vacation I began with a wish list of books I wanted to read! And every year I always began with the same book to start me off: Island of the Blue Dolphin, by Scott O’Dell! (I still have my treasured copy!) I never tired from this. I always looked forward to Karana, the brave twelve year old protagonist, kick-starting me into the frenzy of gobbling up the many books I’d read in the course of those few short months.

Maybe forgetting to read for pleasure happened when the kids started to be born. (Yes, always blame the kids.)

There was so much to learn now. (Beyond how to live abandoned alone on an island that from your perspective belonged to dolphins.)

So much to accomplish. (Besides befriending a pack of wolves.)

So much to live for. (Not that making my own canoe to escape from the island was no longer important.)

Thus, my faith and the heroes who lived it out were the inspiration I needed to live out this evolving life of mine. (And still need today.)

5ab78c2a6b77e6560e849ecb8c1c83f2 — St. Gemma Galgani

Did the Saints, as they were living out their own ordinary lives, think the same thing? Did they look to others for inspiration and support? Did they draw upon the examples of others to live out their own life in a manner pleasing to God? Did they seek out others to help them understand the “blue-print for living,” which our God had written?

I like to imagine they did.

I like to imagine that Joan of Arc looked back upon the courageous way the Blessed Virgin Mary lived out her faith and found the added amount of strength she needed to do battle. I like to imagine that Teresa of Avila drew great wisdom from Catherine of Siena in the journey to be named together as great Doctors of the Church.

St. Terese of Avila Statue St. Peter Cathedral, Erie, Pa

They are all ordinary women who ended up doing extraordinary things for the Lord, precisely because of their deep and abiding intimate communion with Him in prayer. They walked the talk.

All of us are called to the same manner of life. We are all called to gather strength from the other to live in a community that has been given the same Holy Spirit, access to the same wonderful saving Word of God, and the graces which are mediated from Jesus Christ through His Body, in the Sacraments of His Church.

I am grateful for these people. I have learned much from them. And I find pleasure as I imagine them having met one another along the road in their own personal faith walk, from time to time.

“Monica, meet Rita.”