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Nine Toes in Eternity

4/27/2015

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Some of you readers will have noticed that Goodbooks Media recently published a book called Poetry that Enters the Mind and Warms the Heart by Donald DeMarco. Dr. DeMarco is the author of some 27 books about Catholic truth. He is an expert on the contemporary clash between erroneous and deadly practices and true ethics. Many of you will have read the articles he has been writing for years for the Catholic press.

Here is one of the poems I loved the most in his recent book:

WHAT THE LEAVES ARE SAYING

Pale, desiccated leaves, fluttering in the autumn
wind,
Imperiled by the same breath that gives them
Their metaphoric meaning;
Clinging heroically and desperately to withering
stems,
Not knowing what advancing moment
Will detach them from their vital source
And send them plummeting to their grave;
Anxiously trying to tell, in whispering agitations, a
world
That can no longer read what they are trying to say:
Life is short;
Time is precious;
The verdant hope that sprang in May
Is now fulfilled, yet not in
Ecstasy but desolation;
Windswept trees will solemnly stand
With leave-less, outstretched arms,
Configuring an arching prayer and
The hope of Regeneration.

Dr. DeMarco's book is available from Amazon:

Just became 78 years old.
Since when I was 35, I ran around saying
I am half way to eternity. Now I am saying
I have 9 toes in eternity!

A beautiful thought
I think came from Jesus and you could take as apt for yourselves also was this: “When you were conceived I knew you would be Mine.” Brought up as an atheist and now a dedicated widow with Jesus as my bridegroom this had a special meaning for me.

At the seminary when we sing happy birthday to people at means, I, as the oldest motherly woman, get up and give that person a hug. So on my birthday many seminarians and sisters and others got up and gave me a hug. It was so moving.

More from God Alone: (explanation of these “messages” can be found on this blog on 12/18/2014.)

June 29, 2008
Power
Holy Spirit:
You love power and you fear power. It is the human condition. Jesus tries to teach you something to transcend human ways of understanding as in “behold the lilies of the field” or the temple veil is rent by an earthquake, but also by the drops of His blood or the child as the symbol of the kingdom.
The words of St. Paul speak of Christian virtue as the power to do good.
Your minds must be on the Gospel, the good news. Scanning the horizon for the bad news brings the illusion of the power to resist, but resolves nothing, for there are always powerful enemies without and within that threaten you.

The augmented power you feel in the joining of hands (in Christian prayer with others) is a symbol of a different type of power. The images in Scripture of the end of the world symbolize the defeat of purely natural power. Christ’s resurrected body doesn’t defeat the Romans, but defeats the laws of gravity as it ascends.
Grab His feet!

July 1, 2008
Being Drawn In
Holy Spirit:
We, the source of your being, want to draw it always further in. Grace can be for the purpose of giving you extra energy to do Our will on earth. Think of St. Paul and other missionaries. Think of a Christian’s daily life of work for others.
Grace is the energy for good action, but it is also the power to enter in to Our realm. You rest in Us and breathe in “fresh air” so you return to your life tasks with new energy.
Watch this in those you think are close to Us. Can you see when their faces reveal more light? Can you feel more tenderness in their glance or touch?
The seed is hard, the fruit is soft.
“You shall go from grace to grace, from glory to glory.” (2 Corinthians 3:18)

July 2, 2008

(On the Feast of St. Peter and Paul, our priest, Fr. Ken Whittington, gave an incisive sermon to us in this Bible Belt area of North Carolina. Quoting Jesus making Peter the Rock on which He would build His church, Fr. Ken said, “He didn’t say on this book I will build My church. The church assembled the New Testament gradually. Of course, he added, the Bible is the Word of God, but it is not the rock.)

Written Words and Persons
Holy Spirit:
You read about Jesus naming Peter the Rock in the sacred book, but in the earliest days of the Church the people (who had not seen Jesus themselves when He was on earth) heard about Jesus from the mouths of people, the apostles, the disciples. The resurrected Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene, to Peter, to Thomas personally. The written word is a means, not a substitute for persons.
People change and wound, so you can come to prefer written words to people, thinking words hold still. We use the words of truth to reach your minds and hearts such as the words of the Creed. But the Word that became flesh was a person; the second Person of the Trinity and then a person on earth. When the body dies you will not see a book but a Person, your savior. Heaven will not be a library, but the communion of persons.

Because of what He saw and felt in a personal encounter, St. Thomas Aquinas thought the words in his books were but straw.
We are not asking you to throw away all books with written words. Are not these messages sent to become written words? But We do not want you to cling to them as if they were your salvation.
Each single moment of contact in loving presence with Us or with any human person can be for you an opening of the doors of heaven; an opening toward the ecstatic union. After all, new human persons do not come from words but from the “ecstatic union” of two persons. Is not the Trinity an ecstatic union of Persons?
“Be not afraid.” (Matthew 28:10)

July 3, 2008
Setting Forth on a Vaster Sea
Holy Spirit:
You long for larger horizons. At the same time you rush back to the cozy safety of your homes. This is a natural in and out of human life on earth.
For your minds there is a joy in opening to wider views, but then you can become lost in speculation and need to come home to the fundamental truths. In the Church we present to you the vista of an unknown but gleaming heaven and then gather you into your well-known parish settings with the one table of the sacrifice, finally giving you what is as safe as one Eucharistic host.
In this out and in rhythm you suddenly feel bewildered. You need to echo the words of Jesus on the Cross: “Into Your hands I commend my spirit.”
Children laugh more than adults because they have more trust, but the benign smile of an old one, tells of long tested trust and abiding hope. (The smile of Benedict XVI?)
The sailors knew to trust Mary, Star of the Sea.

July 4, 2008
Intensity
Holy Spirit:
We want you to be intense in a way that attracts rather than frightens. We want an intensity of love, not of pseudo-power.
People were not afraid of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. They were drawn by the intensity of their love. So also with the saints.

It seems to you paradoxical that to become more intense in this loving way you have to become more relaxed in your prayer.
Prayer of presence is not tense but receptive. This is because supernatural love that comes into you and radiates from you is not tense. Tension comes from fear.
Our love is intense because it is person to person, but it is relaxed because it is a response to what is of unchangeable value; your created being and what we have created in the being of those you encounter.
Supernatural intensity is as rhythmic as music. Tension, by contrast, is jerky, as you try to coerce others into fitting into some plan you have created to allay fear; for example, fear of loneliness.
So do not begrudge Us the time of receptive prayer. The ecstatic union depends upon your willingness to come out of your habitual state of defensive planning.
Refreshed by Our intense tender love for you, you will be better able to direct rays of love into the hearts of others.
Try!

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Close to Closing

4/22/2015

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It’s close to the end of the semester here at Holy Apostles where I teach, so maybe I am worn out, but I don’t have any new thoughts myself this week. So here is more from God Alone.(Those apparent messages from the Holy Spirit received in 2008. See 12/18, 2014 of this blog for an explanation.)

June 24, 2008
Fear
Holy Spirit:

You often wake up fearful. It is part of your nature as a contingent being, always in need. It is part of living among strangers with unknown motives. How do We work to change fear into trust? (In the past) We trained you in your morning offering to turn to Our invisible presence. In giving your day to Us you would be reminded of the purpose of your life and how your emotions could be brought under the control of Our providence and will.
Throughout the day in prayer you linked your quaking or tired or grateful hearts to Us. Those who received daily the Body and Blood of Jesus were strengthened by His real presence coming right into their bodies. With daily contrition and the sacrament of penance (weekly in the past) you allowed Us to take away the debilitating consequences of sin such as the fear that leads to and issues from hate. Till the end of the world these will be Our fundamental ways to be closer to you and overcome your fear. You will be able to see Us and feel Our presences as a constant, each in your own way. You will be less likely to fall into the abyss of your own weaknesses.
“That all may be one.” (John 17:11)

June 25, 2008
Personal Spirituality
Holy Spirit:
Christian doctrine is objective and unassailable. Though it is ultimately about the salvation of each person, it is not focused on the specific personality of each of you. Scripture, by contrast, includes stories with specific words and actions of individuals. You will notice that it is full of risk. David has to trust that God wants to make use of his training in stoning wild beasts to help him defeat Goliath. He risks his life on his trust that it is God’s will that he step forward. In your personal history you have times where the risks you took failed in your purpose. A small child tries to show love for a parent with a gift that is ridiculed; a man or woman reveals love for a person who rejects him or her. As a result, you can become wary of self-revelation. Your way of being withUs, instead of being child-like and free can become overly formal.

There is balance when you have in each day some perfectly formed liturgical prayer, but then, also, an ever flowing current of personal lifting of your hearts in trust to Us and to our family of Mary, angels, and saints.
There is healing when you are elevated above random prayer into the universal rhythm of liturgy. There is healing, also, in believing that We, who created you to be an individual person, cherish your endearing ways of showing your love and receiving Our love. Think of Mary Magdalene plunging through the ridicule of the Pharisees to anoint the feet of Jesus with her hair.

Singing in worship is so important with each person’s voice harmonizing with the others in praise. Also when those with the gift of tongues pray, each one’s words are different, but they blend in song.
If you recall, I am called “the comforter.” There is comfort in losing yourself in the throng in public formal prayer. There is also comfort in curling up into Our embrace in littleness in personal prayer.
Pray to be free of every fear that keeps you from fullness.
“I will send the Holy Spirit, the comforter.”

June 26, 2008
Light Shines in Darkness
Holy Spirit:
Some days dark powers seem triumphant. You thought you had found a place of security and find instead darkness and danger. It makes you want to hide. The Apostles on Palm Sunday felt triumphant. By Good Friday most fled and hid.
Now it is your turn. Sometimes We tell you to flee, but more often we want you, whatever the price, to stay as a lampstand for Our light. You are to speak the truth, not with hate, but with love. If not you, who? Can you sense that your own words are stronger since you have been receiving these messages?
Often, when you feel you cannot win, that is the time when We can win, even if our victory is not visible. Was Our victory visible when Jesus was crucified? Only a few saw the light bursting through the darkness, but those few were enough for Us to use to spread the light throughout the whole world.
“I come to bring not peace by the sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

June 27, 2008
“The Greatest of These is Love”
Holy Spirit:
God has led each of you through different paths to different treasures. You can come to love a value or virtue in such a way that you become not only its champion but also its defender and then can set in almost a spirit of rivalry. St. Paul wrote of the different gifts of the Spirit, culminating with the blazing proclamation that the greatest of these is love. Can you see that the quality of one small deed of love having its source in divine love is “the pearl of great price”? (Matthew 13:46)

It is not a matter of teeth gritting decisions to overcome your resistance to sacrifice. Rather by sincerity of response to Our love for you, you let Us overcome the resistance to sacrifice. Humble contrition for failure keeps your hearts from closing up in defensive rationalizations of selfishness. Gradually your heart is enlarged. In the end there will be no stopping the flow of love.

June 28, 2008
Holy Spirit:
“On the top of the mountain, “no-thing.” (an allusion to the famous saying of St. John of the Cross: On top of the mountain, nothing.)
The air is thinner:
no smog.
You are lighter:
less attachments.
Do you see
that being “we”
with Us
you are better
more free
not so shaky
not so angry
not so tired
less closed in with your wounds
more close into other’s hearts?
We call it “the Transition.”

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excruciating but Expiatory

4/13/2015

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Since the last Blog I went through the miseries of a colonoscopy prep. I was offering this for my daughter, Carla, whose cancer is in remission but who suffers lots of other pain.

When Carla said that she felt relief and improvement during the time I was offering so much for her I was exultant. The experience gave me a better physical sense of the meaning of the Passion. As Jesus was so joyful in His Resurrection because He knew His physical sufferings for us as well as the mental ones would bring sinners into repentance and eventually into Purgatory and Heaven, how joyful we will feel in heaven when we are with those we suffered for in any ways.

One of my students was describing a visit when she was 7 years old to the Bronx to a retreat given by the Franciscans Friars of the Renewal who try to really live like St. Francis: “Fr. Terry was standing in front of the garbage can...As retreatants came to throw out the food on their plates they hadn’t finished, he would take their plate and eat their leftovers before tossing the paper into the garbage." What a lesson in waste vs. true evangelical poverty that was!

I woke up this morning with the image that I need not dog paddle frantically on the cusp of the breaker wave of the rest of my life, but to float in the arms of my Savior into shore.

From God Alone: (for explanation of these truths from the Holy Spirit Ronda received in 2008 see this blog 12/18)

June 20, 2008
(It seemed as if I dreamt in Spanish to “evitar” (escape, prevent. avoid) the “chip.” and give to the poor. I awoke with a sense of fear. There is a conspiracy theory that claims that before the end of the world the Anti-Christ will make everyone insert a chip in their foreheads in order to prove identity and that this will be used to tyrannize over us.) In response to these thoughts the Holy Spirit seemed to advise me: Give to the Poor

Holy Spirit:
Do not be afraid. Cling to the Church and give to the poor. The “chip” is a symbol of the world and fear of loss. Those who have Us as their locus don’t need to fear. We want you to be a “light” at the top of the mountain. We have prepared you for a long time. Those who want to be poor are not desperate if a change in life-style becomes prevalent. You can start now to do things in more basic ways. We will help you. Ask about each thing you buy or undertake: is this necessary? Savor what you have in each moment. “Behold, I make all things new.” (Rev 21:5)

June 21, 2008
Lightness
Holy Spirit:
The more insecure you feel, the more heavy-handed you become as you grab onto what you think you need, like a climber slipping down the mountain grabbing onto branches. When it is people you are grabbing onto they will often resist to avoid becoming prey, entrapped, used. This is why quiet prayer time is a necessity

Can you see how much lighter is the approach to life of those who are more secure? The climber with a sure guide finds the right place to put the foot and from that secure place can reach out and up with a lighter hold. There are many ways of explaining this: the Eastern concept of detachment or a phrase like “Let go, let God.” Now, don’t become heavy-hearted thinking about how insecure you still are! When you feel insecure, what you have to do is grip tightly onto Us. Since we are usually invisible, you have to do this through prayer. For those with many tasks this can be done with little prayers throughout the day and then longer times as possible. For those of you with ample time the insecurity of so many possibilities could bring you often to Us for longer times of restful peace. From Us you can move more lightly into the next moments of your day. “My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives.” (John 14:27)

(Tangent from Ronda: A quote from Lily Tomlin! “Why is it when we talk to God we are said to be praying but when God talks to us we’re said to be schizophrenic?”)

Wisdom
Holy Spirit:
Wisdom without patience leaves out love. What good is it to understand more and more about the global scene and the people around you and about yourself if you don’t have the patient love to overcome the disgust that comes from bitter truths? Honor those who doggedly work moment by moment to learn and apply and wait. Remember the images of patient farmers Jesus gave you. To surrender your hearts to God and surrender to God those you love, which should include all humanity, is to recognize that only His love can bridge the gap between truth and realization. In some past eras and in some countries now, the perception of injustice led and leads into immediate impulses to vengeance. In your times often impatience leads to the so-called quick fix for all frustrations by any method near at hand, from breaking the law to abortion. Person by person and person to person you need to learn to come into divine wisdom and live that wisdom in patient love. “In your patience you will save your souls.”

June 23, 2008
Unity and Truth
Holy Spirit:
You are concerned that the Transition (a term used in the visions and locutions of a friend of mine) will bring people from different religions into a false unity to the sacrifice of truth. That is because you are looking for external unity. What we are bringing about is a more spiritual unity of all who have been open to letting Us invade their hearts. When people of many religions and nations visit the Pope he doesn’t proclaim that there is only one true Church and they must enter. He tries to reach into their hearts by understanding and gifts so that they feel loved. One day all the saved will know God to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit and will be one universal worshipping body, but the way we will bring this about and the way it will look will not be as you picture it now. Think of the painting in your (parish) Church of Christ the Guru. It is not a picture of an Indian holy man worshipping a cross. It is Jesus showing Himself in the form an Indian would understand. Or, think of the many images of Mary in the apparitions of the different nations. She doesn’t have to look like a Jewish woman of the Old Testament to be true. An Eastern Catholic Church united to Rome, looks more like an orthodox church than a Roman church. Mother Teresa looked more like an Indian woman than like a traditional Catholic nun. Meanwhile, We want to give you the experiences and the gifts to be a light shining in the darkness until the day the light and the darkness will be permanently severed. “Speak the truth with love,” (Ephesians 4:15) and you will kindle the flame.

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Of Temperaments and Temptations

4/8/2015

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An old Irish prayer kind of apt for Passion Week!

Of Christ is the Seed
Of Christ is the Harvest
Into God's barn
May we be brought.

Of Christ is the sea
Of Christ is the fish
Into the nets of God
May we be caught.

From Birth to old age
and from old age unto death,
May your two arms, O Christ
be around us.

From Death unto the end
Not the end but the rebirth,
Into the Paradise of Graces
May we be brought.

The Four Temperaments

I’m big into the Four Temperaments.

In myself, I think the combination of Choleric and Melancholic makes me likely to be angry and then pessimistic in the same instances, so that I go into rage followed by fantasies of flight. The devil plays on this all the time. On the good side is hard work and seriousness. If I only think about what is in my control, that is the simplest way to be home free vs. meddling in all sorts of general problems I have no control over.

More from God Alone
( For an explanation of these “thoughts from the Holy Spirit” see this blog December 18, 2014.)

June 16, 2008
Pace and Openness
Holy Spirit:

Imagine a sight-seeing procession. Ideally it is timed for the right amount of contact with what is to be viewed. The tourists are not jostled quickly past the most important sites.
Rural life was paced by nature: dawn, midday sun, twilight, nightfall, seasons. There was ample time to absorb the nature of trees and animals and weather in the midst of the work cycle. Think of cooking (as an example of absorbing the nature of each food). Think also of the pace of monastic hours of prayer.
In your era, you think instead of spirituality as leaping out of time, out of nature, into the eternal. You think of being saved from the realities you have made, into our eternal now.
More Catholic, universal, is a rhythm of the created with the Uncreated, in and out, out and in, like breath. When you release yourself into Us in prayer, we fill you and then send you back into your world to be open to it and transform it. The pace is liturgical, not rushed.

“There will be a new heaven and a new earth.” (Revelation 21:1)

June 17, 2008
Acceptance?
Holy Spirit:
Your sins nail others to the cross. Obvious are the victims when the sins are theft, scorn, babies torn from their mother’s wombs, terrorized innocents in wars. Less obvious are the victims when they are in complicity as when the victims of lust short-change each other willingly. And is the exploited laborer who wants the job not still a victim? The victims don’t always look like Christ on the cross but they feel the nails in their hearts.

How can you both fight sin, your own and those of others, and yet accept having to live in a world that is full of sin?
Picture a fleeing mob coming upon a launching pad. They see battered but viable helicopters descending to rescue them. Some, wounded in battle, slink away rejecting helping hands. Most let themselves be carried on board. Once safely on board they spy their pursuers on the ground. Some throw things out of the planes to hit their enemies, but one calls out:
“Surrender! If you surrender, after we land in safety we will send back rescue planes for you, too.”
“O happy fault, that led to such a Savior.”
Which choice will you make? Can you see your enemy as one as desperate as you?
You are not called to accept sin, but “to love the sinner.”

Note from Ronda: As a member of the board of directors at Flynn House (a group home for men addicted to alcohol and drugs) I thought I should know more about what the AA meetings are actually like. I was astounded. Here were all these “tough guys” – quite a number on motorcycles, coming in and being so warm to each other and open and honest and needy of each other. I thought, my God, does it take reaching a bottom that low before men can relate in a heart-felt manner to each other? I am now thinking that these locutions from the Holy Spirit are supposed to be related to my experiences during the day, partly to train me through deeper insights. So I am including the context of some of them where that context seems relevant.

Pride of Life
(“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eye and the pride of life, is not of the Father but of the world.” 1 John 2)
Holy Spirit:
You like to see energy in people: in sport, dance, building, climbing, bringing powerful music out of an organ. In nature you like to see the power of the ocean or in a tiger. Adam and Eve were full of such life. Then you see the bad side of power: arrogance, dominance, cruelty: Cain killing Abel. In every situation after the fall there are the two sides: the happy joy of life and the bad pride of life of feeling superior. That pride must be crushed before We can make the “new man in Christ.” One must lose the bad pride of life, for instance, because of ill-fortune or the grim consequences of sin, before one can be molded as soft dough into a person who can love and show the need for being loved. To pray is to acknowledge that your life-force was not and is not enough to bring the happiness you crave. Through your surrender to Us in prayers, we can transform the bad pride of life into energy for building the kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven.

June 18, 2008
Leaning
Holy Spirit:
It takes defeat for most men to become humble and willing to accept the help of God and of other men. For most women it takes disillusionment to lean less on men and stand upright in the strength of the Spirit.
Hand in hand, walking with God, the redeemed men and women can go forward. Hand in hand is not one dominating and the other leaning. That is the ideal. You see it in Mary and Joseph. Think of the journey to Egypt. Joseph had been broken in his pride by the people thinking the baby in Mary’s womb was not his. Mary could not lean on Joseph during his time of uncertainty. Now, together, they go off to Egypt, a new land for them, hand in hand with the God-man, little Jesus. Between the unredeemed and the redeemed is a long process of life together for you men and women with all the conflicts. You cannot go forward without the essential element of forgiveness.
Parents want to be as gods to their children. The children take all their strength, drink up all their love. All that time they need to be taught to find strength and love in the divine Father and, in a different way, in Mary, their spiritual mother.
Children need to grow up; that is up-ward, toward their heavenly destiny. When they have outgrown their intense neediness, they don’t lean, but join hand in hand with you.
The way is strewn with crosses, but leads to the promised land.

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Nine Toes in Eternity

Close to Closing

excruciating but Expiatory

Of Temperaments and Temptations

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