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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My Journey in Learning How to Pray (continued)

by Stella Armstrong

When it was all over and my friends were able to get to me, they told me that what I thought was an eternity of time actually took all of less than 10 seconds from the moment they saw the man barging toward the tricycle where I was, and as I ran pounding from door to door, until they were crying because they were pretty sure the man would be able to enter the apartment where I was with the old woman, until the man was shot by responding police officers. The police told us that the man had earlier wounded and killed two persons on the other street before he went to the street where I was. I couldn't believe that everything happened in a flash because in those series of events I saw time withheld and slowed supremely. And so on the eve of my birthday, our loving Father gave me two immense gifts: an acquaintance with death and a glimpse of time in another dimension, a glimpse of eternal measure that is so beyond our human perception. But unlike the two young people that He had permitted death to take to the eternal world on that day, He has left me here to journey in this pilgrim world. Many times I wonder why He has, but tonight maybe a reason why He has left me, so I can tell you about it.

...took all of less than

...ten seconds.

Even with those special glimpses my journey toward knowing our Father and how to pray has not been easy. But in moments when I would be driven to near despair somehow I would still remember. Looking back now, I could see the following stages as defining my growth in prayer life:

First phase was when I saw Our Father merely as a supplier of my needs and wants, very similar to a magic genie, or Santa Claus. In this stage I would make my request list, and feel angry or unloved if He didn�t give them to me.

Second phase: When the first phase didn't work, I thought I would do the smart thing and bargain with Him. I would change and do this or do that, and then HE should give me what I want. Or I would say, dear Father, IF you give me my request, then I would change for good and do this or do that. This phase didn't work as well, so I went to third phase.

Third phase: In this phase, I thought I had become wiser because I finally started accepting that God's wisdom was far beyond mine, and that He died for me and that His will for all of us is to be in heaven. I learned to trust the unseen. I learned not to expect what I wanted but instead to trust in how He would do things. That although I did not understand His ways, I knew that His way was better than mine. I began to lift my eyes away from this world and toward our home in heaven. I began to understand that most ways in this earthly world do not conform to our heavenly home. I began to see pain and suffering in a different light and how they can help us attain grace. I began to be acquainted with what is called the interior joy in the midst of trials. Unfortunately this manner of acceptance still had a flaw: it was based on the assumption that I would live to see the end of my trials. I thought that by being obedient, God would grant me the grace to seen end to my trials here on earth. And so I heard a question in my heart one day this summer, and the question was: what if your pain does not end in this lifetime, would you still walk with me?

If you saw your sister walking into danger - like walking into oncoming traffic - you would be wise to warn her. Just the same way, we would appreciate someone telling us that we are in danger of spiritual death by sinning gravely. However, you have to find a way to warn her using compassion and love. You also have to be selective in how you tell your sister. If you tell me everyday how I have sinned, I will stop listening to you. After all, judgement is the Lord's, not ours.

What if you pain does not end in this lifetime ...

...would you still walk with me?

My answer to that question took some time to come, but with it a remembrance of my first brush with death and eternity, and a deeper understanding of what it means when our Blessed Virgin Mary said, "behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy word." I think that for the first time in my life, I finally comprehend what eternity means, what a soul means and what the saints keep telling us, "that we are not of this world." I won't be able to fully explain the joyful liberation that I feel, knowing that this world as we know it, our physical bodies and whatever physical or material distress or comfort we are in, is not the end of the world, and will not diminish in any way these eternal truths: that my life may have begun here, but it is not going to end here; that I have an immortal and eternal future, and that there is a kingdom we call our home, where our savior Jesus Christ reigns all powerful truths that will set me free whenever this earthly word would hold me hostage in some form or the other, and tempt me to despair, to lose hope, to compromise. A priest during a mass at EWTN once said: "eternity takes care of all the unfinished business here on earth." It is true: a holy truth that we can hold on to, a powerful shield whenever we despair. It is a fact, no matter if we believe it or not. But as it is, we have a loving Father who sacrificed Himself to let us know that there is resurrection after the death of our physical bodies, and that the life as we know here on earth is not even a blink in the timeless spectrum of eternity. No matter how harsh the pain, how inexplicable the hurt and injustice all of these will pale and fade away once we are given our true share of joy in heaven. Can you imagine how immense and how incomprehensible that joy is going to be?

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