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On Golden Pondering

1/6/2014

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Isn’t ‘pondering’ a great word? Its synonyms include: contemplate, reflect, meditate and cogitate on. You can just imagine Mary by her newborn baby, looking at him adoringly and pondering in her heart on the huge significance of this first Christmas.

Such was my inner response to the unexpected blessings this Christmas brought.

‘Twas an Unfamiliar Christmas Eve  

Florida is where my family spent Christmas this year. I was unhappy to leave my beautifully decorated Maryland home, but it was the right thing to do.

My mother is in assisted living - in Sarasota, where my husband hopes to retire soon. She cannot travel to visit us anymore, having lost the use of her left side in a stroke and being wheelchair bound.  We had to fly out and visit her, because we're her only family in the States - everyone else lives in England. 

It upset me that the closest thing to midnight Mass locally was at 10:30 p.m. Back home we have a true 12 o’clock Mass, but I reckon the older generation couldn’t stay up that late!

Offer up your sadness, I told myself. I expect Mary was a tad dismayed when she saw where her baby was supposed to sleep! And I bet she didn’t give St. Joseph a hard time about it, either. She will have smiled through her disappointment and focused on the positive. 

When Christmas Eve dinner was over I reminded the family that I was going to ‘midnight’ Mass in half an hour.

My twenty-one year old son smiled. “Mum, I’ll come with you. It’s a tradition and it won’t feel like Christmas if I don’t.”

You can imagine how overjoyed I was to hear those words! Not wanting to set myself up for misery, I’d not even secretly hoped he would come. 

Although this would have been the first year without his company, I’d been careful not to bring it up. He is no longer a regular church goer, which I pray will change. But he's too old to have his mother tell him what to think and do.

He pulled out the ironing board, and pressed a clean shirt to wear to greet Our Lord at His birth.

Graces, Godsends & Gratitude

The church was twenty minutes away, and while he drove, my son talked to me about personal things which don’t usually get discussed in the hurried life we lead. Another blessing.  

I had forgotten about the carol service immediately preceding this Mass, and the parking lot was chock full. Yet we found a space and once in the building, were lucky enough to get two seats next to each other half way up the aisle.

The pews were just regular chairs, without any kneelers. During the times in Mass when Catholics would normally kneel, the congregation had to stand.

(I’ll skip over my aggravation - as soon as I’d sat down - at seeing a parishioner walk in with two large, takeaway cups of coffee. I deliberately looked no more in their direction, as I didn’t want to see whether or not they had the audacity to drink it during the service!! Judge not lest ye be judged, I told myself.)

My son remembered all the prayers and responses during Mass, which was another wonderful surprise. The priest then incensed the offerings, and after a short while that distinctive aroma reached us.

Ross beamed. “Ah! Now it’s Christmas!”

I was so grateful to God that my son still embraced Catholic tradition.  I pray this will lead him fully back to the Church one day.

After Mass, as we were returning our hymnals, he noticed that a free book was being handed. The title was on my ‘to buy’ list: Rome Sweet Home by Scott and Kimberley Hahn. Another unexpected bonus, which I voraciously read over the next three days.

Merry Christmas to Us, and to Us a Good Night 

Our cozy chats resumed during the trip back to the semi-darkness of my mother-in-law’s house, where everyone else had gone to bed.

Traditionally, after midnight Mass Ross joins me in a glass of mulled wine and we eat a minced pie each. Sadly, he was unable to do so this year, having been recently diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. God willing, he will share these things with me again next year.

Instead, we hugged and wished each other “Merry Christmas!” before he retired to bed.

Midnight Meditations

In a happy daze, I sat alone at the little breakfast table, sipping my hot spiced wine and munching on a minced pie - baked in Maryland for this very occasion - past the hour of 12 a.m.

My heart was full as I pondered this evening’s miraculous events and contemplated Mary’s wonder on beholding her child in the manger that first Christmas night.

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The Power of Praying For Our Enemies

12/5/2013

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Christmas is a great time to examine our feelings towards our enemies.

Advent, preparing for the coming of God in human form at Christmas, is the perfect time for examining our attitude towards our enemies.  Christ calls us to forgive them and to love our neighbor (which includes our enemies) as ourselves.

But it’s hard!

So how about trying this first step: praying for those who hate you?

Choose specific prayers - for example, a decade of the Rosary. If you set aside a few minutes each day to pray for the person (or persons) who hate you, for at least one month, you’ll gradually find yourself enjoying the following unexpected blessings.

What Makes Praying For Your Enemies So Powerful?

 1.      It gives you benevolent power

By doing something good for your enemies, you diminish their ability to hurt you.
Sending ‘good vibes’ their way blocks the ‘bad vibes’ they’re sending your way.
Love conquers hate: it’s that simple.

2.     It reduces their negative power

By praying for individuals who intensely dislike you, you allow them to occupy only a tiny time-slot during your day. Then you’re done with them: they no longer dominate your thoughts for hours on end.

No one likes anybody to hate them, and praying for enemies eliminates their power to upset you.

3.      You gain peace

The angels didn’t say “peace on earth and goodwill to all men”, as is commonly misquoted. They actually said: “Glory to God in highest heaven, and peace on earth to those with whom God is pleased.” Luke 2:14 New Living Translation.

God is pleased with us if we let go of resentment and do something good for those who hate us. That is the path to peace.

4.      You’ll feel good about yourself

I’m not talking about being a ‘goody-two-shoes’ here. I’m talking about the good and faithful servant who has done his duty, and can sleep at night because he has a clean conscience and wishes no one ill will.

5.      You’ll discover a hidden strength in yourself

As you experience the above benefits, you’ll learn that you are much stronger than you thought and see yourself in a new light.

It’s not just the saints who can overcome their animosity to those who hurt them. You, too, have the strength to start out on the path to holiness.

Avoiding a Potential Pitfall

When we begin praying for those who hate us, there is the danger of feeling superior to them.

A good way to avoid this is to examine the reasons for their dislike. The answers keep us humble and prevent us from thinking of them as ‘bad people’ and ourselves as ‘good people.’

Perhaps their circumstances are not as good as ours, and they are jealous of us? If so, we need to feel empathy, rather than animosity.

Maybe we’ve done something to hurt them – intentionally or unintentionally? Do we need to ask them for forgiveness? Even if we’re not yet ready to do this, being aware of the need to do so will keep us from feeling ‘holier than thou.’
 

Praying for our enemies brings many blessings. By exercising our benevolent power over them, we reduce their negative power over us.  We gain peace and feel good about ourselves in a humble way.

With the discovery that we do have the strength to become holier, we’ll approach baby Jesus on the day of His birth with confident trust that He will help us fulfill His commandments of love and forgiveness - towards those who love us and those who don’t.

 

 

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Feeling Like a Christmas Turkey

12/31/2011

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On Christmas night I walked down in the dark from my house to the barn to give my horses more hay.

God Bowls Me Over

Unfortunately the starlight wasn’t bright enough to light the route and my left foot stumbled into a big rut.

I went flying and landed on my hands and knees on the gravel. Feeling a real idiot, I lay still for a few seconds to adjust to the pain of the scrapes on my palms and knees.

Then I rolled over onto my back. As I stared at the diamond studded heavens, it struck me that if I hadn’t taken a tumble I wouldn’t have noticed the Christmas beauty up there.
 
That awesome majesty made me smile broadly in the darkness as I recognized the Big Dipper and Orion among the million other constellations God created.

Another Christmas Fall

My mother had fallen on her back in the house on Christmas Eve. She was visiting for the holidays and is in her eighties. Amazingly she not only got up and was able to go upstairs – albeit aided – to bed, but she came down that morning without hobbling or even mentioning the incident.

Giving Thanks For Feeling Like a Turkey!

So as I lay there, looking really silly in the driveway, I was thankful for her not having broken anything, and thankful for the opportunity to lay peacefully outside regarding God’s wonders above me.

Then I got up, dusted myself off and continued with my task of feeding the horses. For a few minutes I stood outside their stalls and listened to them snorting contentedly while they munched on their hay.

All was right with my world.

Today is the last day of the year, and I wish everyone a peaceful New Year in 2012. 

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Gaudete, Then Gaudete Some More!

12/12/2011

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Yesterday was Gaudete Sunday and our priest exhorted us to rejoice. Was this a cruel joke?

But with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, Father began his sermon by asking how many of us feel joy right now at this stage of our preparations for Christmas. We looked at him with care-worn faces and hoped he understood why ‘joy’ wasn’t in our current vocabulary!

He did. He gets the fact that preparing for Christmas is enormously stressful.

Let Us Pray

But he also reminded us of St. Paul’s words in the second reading: “always give thanks to God and pray unceasingly.” Praying brings us closer to God, and we have so much to be thankful for.

He added that St. James tells us to quit complaining: no one wants to be around someone who moans all the time. One day Father wrote down every complaint he made that day, either in thought or in word. He was horrified to realize just how long his tally was. He needed to work hard at not complaining.

He pointed out how prone we are to grumbling about the one thing that’s not going right, and how we lose focus on everything that’s going well for us. We need to thank God for all the good in our lives, and offer up our difficulties to Him as a sacrifice.

Cheerful Equals Evangelical

Everyone likes a cheerful person, and people notice when a Christian, with all the reason in the world to be down in the dumps, is genuinely joyful about life. They want to know the secret of this joy. 

The ‘secret’ is that Christian’s faith.

Christmas is definitely a tough time of year for most of us. But with all those not-so-subtle ways that Christianity is being attacked, starting with being expected to say “Happy Holidays” in case we offend a non-Christian, it’s becoming more and more important to make public the wonderful benefits of believing in Christ.

Not only should we be spreading the Good News by greeting everyone with “Merry Christmas!” but we should behave as if we are having a Merry Christmas by being joyful. How else will non-believers come to know Christ?

Being cheerful involves preparing for the Lord’s birth with a smile despite the daily aggravations this brings. ‘Taint easy, and we won’t always be unsuccessful. But the important thing is that we get up and keep trying.

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    Hilary Walker

    A fanatic horse rider and writer of Christian Inspirational Fiction, who's beginning to understand that making it to Heaven is a tad more important than winning at horse shows.

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