Bromides that work part 1

It was many, many years ago I was having breakfast with my neighboring pastor Fr. Tot O'Dea R.I.P.  We were both from St. Patrick's in Carlow which meant the great bond of trust was there.  Oh how important the bond of trust is to a relationship.  We were able to share our life's stories in brutal honesty.  There was the assurance of no judgments.  I was blessed to have his counsel for many years.  Tot had a store of wisdom that was so soothing and heartwarming.  The wisdom was expressed in what he liked to call bromides.  Sayings that somehow brought about a change to my seeing, and thinking.  I am now beginning to accept that, as my physical sight is beginning to fade, the ability to see life in a new and better way is its replacement gift.  I am able to see and say yes there is a life beyond the life I am aware of, and this is the life that I am meant to live, in the freedom of a beloved son of my gracious, and mercy-full Father.  Spiritual bromides have been source of the necessary saving grace.  "All is grace!!!"

 

 

 

 

Introduction to spiritual bromides part 3

I have come to, or, better still I am coming to, the acceptance of this harsh reality, surrender is a process it is not achieved in one event or action. Oh!!! sometimes we're are under the illusion that we have to surrender something only to realize that we took it right back. Here is my experience, I have never really surrendered anything until it has brought me the most pain and distress.  Surrendering is a choice that we make.  We think we are on our own, we are not.  "O god you have heard the cry of my heart, because it was you God, who cried out within me" is a great spiritual "bromide," or a gift from one of my masters, Thomas Merton.  He has also penned one of the greatest prayers I have had to come to an intimate relationship with over the years of trial, sorrow and failure.  "My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I don't see the road ahead of me.  I do not know for certain where it will end, nor do I really know myself.  To think that I am actually doing your will does not mean I am actually doing so.  I believe this, the desire to please you does in fact please you.  I hope I have that desire in everything I do, I hope I do nothing apart from that desire, and I know this that if I do this You will lead me by the right road, though I may know NOTHING of that at the time.  Therefore I will trust you always for though I seem to be in the shadow of death I will not be afraid because I know You will never allow me to face my perils all alone." (Out of Solitude)

 

Introduction to spiritual bromides part 2

Luckily I have been blessed with some great, but challenging wisdom over the many years.  Here are some of the practices that have allowed me to maintain some semblance of sanity, at least to this point in time.  Where I go from here is a very moment to moment question.  The answers to which I am not privy to, so it is or has to be living "one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time."  Oh brother!!! how I have been depending on the mysterious power of living in the present moment.  That is of course when I can place myself, and find myself in the present moment. These are rare and very precious moments.  It is so easy to say "live one moment at a time, it is for me, so, so very difficult to actually achieve. Even though the Scriptures tell us that "now is an acceptable time, now is the time of salvation," we still find it so difficult to make it a daily practice.  It is that daily practice of repetition that allows it to seep deep into our unconsciousness.  There it awaits to be called on.

The above quotation is a quotation I have been reading for so long, but it is now I am getting really acquainted, with that wisdom. Has that come to me as the result of any great success?, on the contrary it has been with the pain of loss, failure, loneliness, isolation, and the fear of the unknown future,  (to mention just a few) that has brought me to my knees and into an ever deepening surrender.  The Fighting Irish are not known to surrender very readily.  That is our greatest blessing and our greatest weakness. That is another thing I have had to grow in acceptance of which one cannot have one without the other.  Darn it!!! There is a word from "The Derry Girls" and "Mrs. Browns Boys" I would like to use instead.  Go figure!!!!

 

Introduction to spiritual bromides

Over the years I have seen posted on my Face Book page that a person had spent whole the day in their pajamas. In my ignorance I had this very judgmental thought, "how could anybody do that?" Well guess what, I have spent the last TWO days in my pajamas, or as I prefer the Spanish, "pijamas." (There is a nicer ring to it.) It has hit a high of 118 degrees and we have had other days in the high teens.  Place the quarantine on top of that and you can well guess I have been in some real weird places.  I have not had a hug in about three months, this I miss the most.  We all need human contact.  We are created by our wise Creator to be that way. "It is not good for man to be alone" is one of the earliest admonishments found in the Bible.  Nothing over time has contradicted that wise counsel.  I have not celebrated a public mass in the same amount of time, and the future here in Arizona is not looking good for a person of my age for that to change.  So I am left with me, myself and I, which is to be in the company of a tough trinity.  The companionship I cannot very well get divorced from.  We are really stuck together until "death do us part."  This virus has brought death as the uninvited visitor to so many families.  Sadly the numbers are increasing day by day.  What a journey into powerlessness we have been blasted into." I believe LORD, HELP MY DISBELIEF,  is the prayer I am relying on to get me from one moment to the next.

 

Wandering thoughts part 3

Merton writes in "No man is an Island:" "Supernatural hope is the virtue that strips us of all things in order to give us possession of all things."  We do not hope for what we have.  Therefore, to live in hope is to live in poverty, having nothing.  (That does not sound so good, does it? Kind of scary!!! Please, don't stop now. The good stuff comes next.) And yet, if we abandon ourselves to economy of Divine Providence, we have everything we hope for.  By faith we know God without seeing Him. By hope we possess God without feeling His presence.  If we hope in God, by hope we already possess Him, since hope is a confidence which He creates in our souls as secret evidence that He has taken possession of us.  So the soul that hopes in God already belongs to Him, and to belong to Him is the same as to possess Him, since He gives Himself completely to those who give themselves to Him.  The only thing faith and hope does not give us is the clear vision of Him Whom we possess.  We are united to Him in darkness, because we have to hope. We are saved by patient hope.  Romans 8:24.