I really need to work on blogging on a more consistant basis but ever since I have found TWITTER... well typing less that 140 characters is much easier than typing an entire journal entry... so maybe I should begin to piece together my tweets and make a blog post ;)

I just want to wish the world a very Merry Christmas! May your hearst be filled with the peace and joy of our Savior who offered Himself for us, nailed to the wood of the Cross!

This Christmas is different in many ways, I suppose that is certainly part of growing up... For the first time I do not have a winter break where I spend a solid month in VA with my family. This is the first time I have come home to VA with armfulls of wrapped presents and a suitcase. My grandmother is no longer with us and my family is certainly feeling that pain, especially my grandfather and mom. Lindsey and Scott (sister and brother in law) aren't coming in until Christmas Eve from Arkansas. My cat isn't with me this Christmas either, crawling up into the tree...

This year I have been able to enter into Advent in a new way, while realizing for the first time how much I do not enter into the liturgical season and get caught up in the secular aspects of it all. I had my first staff Christmas party which was a wonderful blessing, my Pastor is amazing to me, like a second father. I starred in my first Christmas pageant since the 8th grade and without even knowing my lines had to learn another part and smoosh them together. Hahahaha...

All of a sudden Christmas is around the corner... and what stuck out to me last night in prayer?? This:

"Oh come oh come Emmanuel and RANSOM CAPTIVE Israel that mourns in lowely exile..."

I am that ransomed captive, I am Israel for whom he came to die.

In how many ways am I a captive of my own sin, my actions and decisions? I am not a captive of the flesh, that is a gift of God. I am not a captive of Satan, my Baptism claimed me for God. I am not a captive of this world, my faith, my Church and my God teach me to live in and not of it. I am only a captive to my own sin... MINE. And that, my brothers and sisters, is captive enough.

He RANSOMED me... his blood was the ransom for my freedom. He paid the ransom for me, that captive, and that ransom was the blood flowing down the splinters of the cross into the earth. I was bought, purchased, ransomed.... me. I wasn't locked in a tower, guarded by a dragon and saved by Prince Charming... I die inside myself... not to myself... in my heart, mind and will I choose sin and there I am enslaved... I chain myself... and then came Christ not on a white stallion but on a bed of hay... to shed his blood to tear down the walls of my heart and chains of my sin and to claim me once again as His.

Release

Where can I begin? Where can anyone begin to articulate the balance between the flood of emotions and hollow shell that overcomes you when faced with the death of a loved one. Everything in me screams but without sound... and then there is that little voice in my head that tells me that I have no right to be sad, no place to suffer this emotion... that my life is so beautiful and I am so blessed that how dare I waste a moment thinking I have a right to grieve.

Indeed, my life is beautiful and I am abundantly blessed. I couldn't ask for more. I am humbled.

What is it that creates this dichotomy? This bi-polar conflict between floating and fighting? I suppose I merely fall short of knowing how to deal with emotions... I am but compensating for this inablity to process and deal with my emotions. At my age and with my education and faith I would have thought otherwise, but again I am humbled. Again I am convicted that I need not look at myself to heal or to grieve but to the Lord. I need but fall into the same arms that spread wide on the cross. There I am able to melt, and weep and heal.

"Lord, break my heart with what breaks Yours"

Gal. 4:4-7

Galatians 4:4-7 reads "God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were Under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are childern, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a child, and if a child then and heir, through God."
(See also Romans: 8:14)

The Spirit exists in OUR HEARTS crying: ABBA! Through Baptism we are made new, we are transformed into a neophyte, a new creation. Through this sacrament God reclaims us as his own, saving us from the slavery of sin and the world. He reclaims us through adoption that Christ claimed for us on the cross! His blood was the price paid so that you and I may inherit the kingdom of heaven. And all we have to do to accept this inheritance is to accept Him and to live love.

How often do we turn our backs on our Father and choose the slavery of the world? How often do we chain ourselves to people and possesions? Daily we CHOOSE slavery!

Baptism is the sacrament through which God calls us into the New Covenant with Him. Much more personal than the Old Covenant we read about in the Old Testament, this New Covenant is in Christ, built on love. We were created by God and for Him. There is part of us that can only be whole in GOD! There is part of our hearts that cries our for God! In Baptism we receive the fullness of grace to hear and receive that call that God has for all His created ones.

The world constantly claims to be able to fill this empty place in us through material goods, drugs, alcohol, abuse of human sexuality, and broken, imperfect and fragile human relationships. The world will never be able to complete us, another person will never be able to complete us. There is a God shaped hole is our hearts.

God transforms WHAT we are into WHO he is! (Sword of the Spirit, Mark Hart and Christoper Cuddy)

Once we take a moment to step back from ourselves and take in this concept, life cannot be the same. Once aware, the hole only becomes more evident and the cry louder. We must fall at the feet of the One who bleed for us.

My Very Core

Sometimes I don't whether to write as if I have an audience or not... interesting... to think for one second that someone would be interested in following what I take the time to spit out on my computer... some form of vanity? Hope? Disillusion? Hahaha... in anycase... the revelations of my life continue.

It amazes me the beauty of sitting in the presence of Him who created the heavens and the earth... if only we could grasp an ounce of that reality... of His Beauty... Himself.

How easy it is for us to go about day by day, hour by hour, complacent and choosingly ignorant to our purpose... the very core of our creation...

To give Him glory... and how do we do that? My mom always told me as a kid that imitation was the greatest form of flattery and how very true it is... in imitating God we glorify Him... Deus Caritas Est... we are to love... for this we were created.

Not to love conveniently or half-heartedly. Not to choose whom we love or how. Not to qualify how we give ourselves or to do so in order to benefit in any way. It is such a simple concept. The potential cornerstone on which to build sainthood.

Why are we such self centered people? Why is everything about us, about me? I view my life as though everything revolves around me... cliche' but disgustingly accurate. That seems to be the root... but what exactly is it... to fight against something, it needs to be understood.

Sweet One, enlighten my heart.
~Just a Broken Vessel

A Journey Unfolds

Throughout our discussion of the letters of St. Paul in LIGHT (St. Joe's High School Youth Group) I have unknowingly began a journey of self. By simply looking at random verses of his epistles so as to come up with a lesson each week, the Lord has begun to do some amazing things in my heart. Almost as if He has opened my eyes to my own self, I am slowing becoming increasingly aware of my struggles, sins, and "-isms". It is like the dawn slowly creeping across the earth one blade of grass at a time. While difficult in many respects, these mini revelations of self have made me feel more alive than I have in years. I am waking from complacency, the complacency that comes from years in a Catholic mecca. One would think that these revelations would have been more likely to come about while surrounded by people and a lifestyle that focuses on challenge and betterment of self, but instead it is in coming out of loneliness and transition that my heart is being brought into light.

My prayer is to not get in the way of myself and to prevent the Lord in any way from revealing all He has for me at this stage in my life. Heavenly Father, may I be humbled to the point of prostration at your throne and with my face pressed to the ground lift my heart to you. Amen

He keeps suprising me

The Lord is Good and Faithful. His Mercy endures forever. Great is His Faithfulness and Holy if His name. I have found that living on my own in a strange place where I don't know anyone has been much different than expected. I have come to realize that, in my complacency, I have been asleep for many months before I arrived in Baltimore. I feel that the Lord is gently waking me up to realize the greatness of His will and the true meaning of meekness. As a naturally outgoing, talkative and somemtimes loud person... this virtue is of the greatest importance to strive for. There were times in my life when I fought my Type-A personality... resisted the urge to respond, to reach out... to embrace my over-expressive facial features and reactions. After a series of painful life-events (which we all experience and are utterly necessary) I dropped my guard and decided to learn virtue according to my personality instead of fighting it.

I feel like I am beginning a whole new chapter in the project of virtue. In no way am I patting myself on the back or feel the least bit deserving of any admiration... but rather that I am experiencing humility in a new way. Humility between myself and the King of Kings... no one else involved. Praise God. He knows how sweetly to appraoch my heart, how forcefully to call me to change. What a challenging revelation and I am thankful.

Love Beyond Self,
Lauren

In The Beginning

Hello World!!! I have officially been convinced to start a "blog." This is certainly something I never thought I would do... seeing as how I am not the best at computers, technology or the Internet. But here goes nothing. I hope to jot down reflections on faith love and life (sounds so cliche' doesn't it?).

My only hope is that writing down my thoughts could lead someone else to deeper reflection... God willing. As I have started my new position at St. Joseph Fullerton, I have met a lot of wonderful people who sacrifice their time and pour out their hearts into this parish community. It has certainly been beautiful to witness and inspiring to say the least.

As I move into the year I plan on bringing to prayer and reflection the letters of St. Paul. Who has been one of my favorite saints for many years now. A fiery man whose passion and perseverance lead him to condemn and chastise the Church earlier in his life. Through the tender grace of God, Paul was able to lay aside his pride and judgements and turn his seemingly vices into the gifts that supported his evangelization and heart. Paul has always inspired me to look past myself, set aside my human tendencies to judge and to focus on loving people where they are at. I am so grateful this year in the Church is dedicated to him! Praise God.

2 Corinthians 12:8-10 "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, on order that the power of Christ may dwell with me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hard ships, persecutions, and constraints, for the sake of Christ; for when I am weak then I am strong."

Sweet Jesus, may we learn to embrace the teachings of St. Paul and learn the reality and beauty of true humility. In embracing that virtue, may we grow in our ability to love beyond self.