Bread of Life

Prayer...

Prayer is, in the strictest sense, a humble religious petition of man to God to seek divine benevolence and benefits he needs for life, both temporal and eternal. It is a conversation with God, either by accepted prayer forms, or from the heart. Consider these words as if God were speaking them to His children...

"It is not necessary my child, to know much in order to please me much; it is enough that you love me fervently. Speak here to me then, as you would speak to your most intimate friend, to your mother, to your brother."

~God your Father~

He Gave His Only Son

"Have you come to believe because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."

John 21:29

Quotes to Live By

There should be less talk. A preaching point is not a meeting point.

The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved-- they are Jesus in disguise.

In the West there is loneliness, which I call the leprosy of the West. In many ways it is worse than our poor in Calcutta. (Commonweal, Dec 19, 1997)

It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.

The poor give us much more than we give them. They're such strong people, living day to day with no food. and they never curse, never complain. We don't have to give them pity or sympathy. We have so much to learn from them.

I see God in every human being. When I wash the leper's wounds, I feel I am nursing the Lord himself. Is it not a beautiful experience?

I do not pray for success. I ask for faithfulness.

Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

~Mother Teresa~

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How Do I Know It is Jesus?

by Stella Armstrong

I am part of a small prayer and bible study group here in our parish that is called the "Pointers" and the seven-step study method that we use asks us to choose a word or a phrase in the verse that we are studying, and then to reflect on that phrase. For this week, kindly allow me to share with you my reflections about the phrase from Matthew 8:18-22: "Follow me ...." These two words are very special to me because they are the central point of the question that I have struggled with as I journey toward a closer relationship with Jesus. Over the years I have struggled with a self-will that is persistent, wily and very good at confusing me. I would like to think that my problem in following Jesus is not with my unwillingness to obey but in my fear that I am not sure if the way I am going is the way where our Lord is actually leading. Our good Lord knows that during most mornings, my prayer would be: "Dear Lord, kindly speak louder to me so I could hear what you would like me to do." I think that the technical term for this kind of spiritual acuity that I continue to pray for is called discernment, its root word being "discern." In the dictionary, "discern" means to "detect" or to "perceive differences," "the ability to distinguish." For example, for most of us, discerning or distinguishing the differences between colors is a given � this is brown, this is black � but for some people who are color-blind, all the colors they can discern is black, white and grey. Blue, green and red all appear the same. Because of their physical limitation they are unable to discern colors. But even the most acute of human vision cannot compare with the visual acuity of birds. Migrating birds for example, have such a keenness of vision that they can detect or discern the movement of the sun, the moon and constellations so precisely and can therefore adjust their flight accordingly while we human beings take a much longer time to actually discern the actual movement of planets and stars, especially if we ourselves are moving. One popular site online compares the sensory acuity of our fellow creatures to ours: when a pine needle falls in the forest, the deer hears it, the eagle sees it and the bear smells it but human beings wouldn't know. In the spiritual world, our struggle with discerning which is our self will and which is God's will illustrates a fine line that confronts us every day.

our struggle with discerning which is our self will and which is God's will...

...illustrates a fine line that confronts us every day.

Many years ago when I started trying to discern which is self-will and which is God's will, our gracious God used a popular television show to illustrate to me (and to the millions who were watching it) a lesson on self-will. It was a show similar to Deal or No Deal, where a contestant answers a series of questions and earn progressively bigger amounts. After answering all questions correctly the contestant has the option to either keep the money, or surrender it for a chance to win a million pesos by choosing from among two suitcases the one that contained the million pesos. If she chooses the correct suitcase with the money she keeps the million pesos. If she chooses wrong then she goes home empty handed. I was in the kitchen doing chores while my family was watching this show but the contestant caught my attention when she said that God had made it possible for her to make it through elimination rounds and be the ultimate finalist. She said that it was God who guided her because she needed 536,000 pesos for her husband's heart operation and she knew that she would win because God had led her there. After the round of questions which she all answered correctly, she did win exactly 536,000, the amount needed for her husband's operation. But when the chance came for her to decide whether she would keep the money or surrender it to have a chance to claim one million pesos, the woman chose to surrender the money and decided to go to the second round to pick the suitcase with the bigger amount of money. She said that God had taken her that far she was so sure that God was generous and wanted her to have more. Although the Television host was really trying to tell her that she was making the wrong decision, the woman kept saying that God would not fail her and that He had led her there to win as much money as she could. In the end, she chose the suitcase that was empty and the woman was unable to bring home the 536,000 pesos that she had won in the previous round. She was stunned beyond words and as for myself that day, I was also stunned. I knew that God has given me a very clear illustration of why I should always be wary of my self-will.

I knew that God has given me a very clear illustration...

...of why I should always be wary of my self-will.

Our fellow creatures are blessed with acuity of their senses so they can survive. In so much more ways we too have been given God's word to develop, refine and sharpen our spiritual discernment, our ability to be keen in insight and in judgment, so that we can see with clarity which is self-will, and which is God's will in our lives. The more we feed on God's word by truly understanding the Bible and strengthen our spiritual selves with the daily Eucharist, the more we will enable our self-will to discern, to distinguish, the many false voices tempting us away from our Good Shepherd. Every day as we confront the many voices who say "come, follow me," we should pray, we should ponder, and we should be patient in humility, enabling us to hear more clearly the voice of our Lord Jesus whenever He invites us, "come, follow me."

URLVD

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