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“Noah built an altar to the LORD,
and choosing from every clean animal and every clean bird,
he offered burnt offerings on the altar.”
via USCCB | NAB – February 16, 2011.

We offer back to the Lord what He has first given to us. I look around and check out my ‘belongings’…my family, my relationships, my home and all that goes with it, my health, my desires, my time, my talents…all gifts from the Lord…all of it! All to be used for His purposes and His purposes alone. Lord, I lay it all at Your Altar!

“Do you not yet understand or comprehend?
Are your hearts hardened?
Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear?
And do you not remember,
when I broke the five loaves for the five thousand,
how many wicker baskets full of fragments you picked up?””
via USCCB | NAB – February 15, 2011.

I guess this is why I’ve started this blog…so that I could remember. We are often like Dorothy and her friends in the Wizard of Ozz going through the poppy fields…try as we may, we just doze off(the world can be very intoxicating)…and need others to carry us through and to remind us of His love for us.

“In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the LORD
from the fruit of the soil,
while Abel, for his part,
brought one of the best firstlings of his flock.”

via USCCB | NAB – February 14, 2011.

God isn’t happy with the little crumbs we throw His way…He wants our very best of what we have to offer. For me…it is my time.  He wants ‘prime time’…not whatever is over at the end of the day, if anything. He wants to go on the top of my to do list…and not get crowded out with a multitude of un important stuff.

“For the man and his wife the LORD God made leather garments,
with which he clothed them.”
via USCCB | NAB – February 12, 2011.

I see this as  a sign of an incredibly loving, merciful and forgiving Father.  He provides for them as He does for us in our needs. He chose to meet them where they are and provide for their perceived lack, that came about from their sin, by the shedding of innocent blood.  He does the same for us,  He knew that we  live in a tangible world and would need a concrete encounter with Him to sustain us. He provided! His own Son became the sacrifice…innocent blood shed for our sin, in order to cover us. He continues reaching out to us in the Sacraments…in the bloodless sacrifice of the Mass, He covers us.

“Then the eyes of both of them were opened,
and they realized that they were naked;
so they sewed fig leaves together
and made loincloths for themselves.”

via USCCB | NAB – February 11, 2011.

For the last few days I’ve been pondering the ‘hole’ in my heart that hungers and thirsts…ultimately for God. However this hole (or gage as I like to call it) was not there from the beginning of time. Or maybe it was but only as a back up and not meant to ever be activated. Adam and Eve had total intimacy with the Lord at this point, He was to fulfill all of their needs…they weren’t meant to ever run on empty.  Then ‘their eyes were opened’…the gage was activated by their disobedience…and they started seeing themselves as ‘naked’ or  needy…that something was missing.  And instead of taking their needs to the Lord they fashioned for themselves some coverings. I wonder…had they just told the Lord right away what they had done, instead of being found out later…and had turned to Him with their new sense of need…would the outcome had been different?  

We have now inherited the ‘hole’ and are a ‘needy’ people. What do we do about it? What ‘coverings’ have we been fashioning for ourselves? God has provided a way for us…through His Own Son! Let’s turn to Him instead of our own devices. We can now have that intimacy the our first parents lost. Emmanuel….God is with us!

 

God’s Loving Design

8. Married love particularly reveals its true nature and nobility when we realize that it takes its origin from God, who “is love,” (6) the Father “from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named.” (7)

Marriage, then, is far from being the effect of chance or the result of the blind evolution of natural forces. It is in reality the wise and provident institution of God the Creator, whose purpose was to effect in man His loving design. As a consequence, husband and wife, through that mutual gift of themselves, which is specific and exclusive to them alone, develop that union of two persons in which they perfect one another, cooperating with God in the generation and rearing of new lives.

The marriage of those who have been baptized is, in addition, invested with the dignity of a sacramental sign of grace, for it represents the union of Christ and His Church.

via Humanae Vitae – Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Paul VI on the regulation of birth, 25 July 1968.

“1. On the basis of the doctrine contained in the Encyclical Humanae Vitae, we intend to trace an outline of conjugal spirituality. In the spiritual life of married couples the gifts of the Holy Spirit are at work, especially the gift of piety, that is, the gift of respect for what is a work of God.

This gift, together with love and chastity, helps to identify in the sum total of married life that act in which, at least potentially, the spousal meaning of the body is linked with the procreative meaning. It leads to understanding, among the possible manifestations of affection, the singular or rather the exceptional significance of that act: its dignity and the consequent serious responsibility connected with it. Therefore, the antithesis of conjugal spirituality is constituted, in a certain sense, by the subjective lack of this understanding which is linked to contraceptive practice and mentality. In addition to everything else, this does enormous harm from the point of view of man’s interior culture. The virtue of conjugal chastity, and still more the gift of respect for what comes from God, mold the couple’s spirituality to the purpose of protecting the particular dignity of this act, of this manifestation of affection. In it, the truth of the language of the body can be expressed only by safeguarding the procreative potential.”

via Respect for the Work of God.

from  Theology of the Body

http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/JP2TBIND.HTM

“This one, at last, is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called ‘woman,’
for out of ‘her man’ this one has been taken.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother
and clings to his wife,
and the two of them become one flesh.

via USCCB | NAB – February 10, 2011.

Yesterday I struggled with the understanding of hunger for food being representative of our hunger for Christ…and how the Eucharist feeds us. 

Today we take a look at how our desires of the ‘flesh’ are also God given and representative of our desire for God. 

All that God created is good and a vehicle for graces…it wasn’t until after sin entered the world that these things became warped and became instead possible vehicles for distruction. God knowing our limitations quite well, has lovingly provided boundaries for us. The Sacrament of Marriage is such a vessel.   It is life giving and provides grace for living a holy life. It is a taste of the Eucharistic Union  where we become united with Our Lord in the flesh here and now. It is also foretaste of what full intimacy with the Lord in heaven will be like.

Christians and Catholics in particular are often accused of being prudes and not liking sex. That is so far from the truth that it is rediculous. We actually value it so highly that we don’t want to see it ‘trashed’, it is sacred and not to be abused and showed in a negative light by the likes of Hollywood. I would suggest anyone that may read this to take a look at ‘Theology of the Body’…very impressive.

In the beginning was the beginning, and in it it all began
All that they had was God and the garden, the woman and the man
Before creation learned to groan, the stars would dance and sing
Each moment was new, every feeling was fresh, for the creature her king and queen

But deep in the heart of that beautiful garden, forbidden truth was found
They were deceived, disobeyed, and were driven from that holy ground
But beside the tree of disobedience, the tree of life did grow
The gift of its fruit and eternal beginning, but they would never know

Chorus:
The beginning will make all things new, new life belongs to him
?
My child begin again
My child begin again
You’re free to start again

This very moment is filled with his power, that wee might start anew
To break us away from the past and the future, he does what he must do
And so the Alpha brings to us, this moment to commence
To live in the freedom of total forgiveness, with reckless confidence
via Michael Card – The Beginning Lyrics.

HYMN

Now from the heavens descending
is seen a glorious light,
the bride of Christ in splendour,
arrayed in purest white.
She is the holy city,
whose radiance is the grace
of all the saints in glory,
from every time and place.

This is the hour of gladness
for bridegroom and for bride.
The Lamb’s great feast is ready,
his bride is at his side.
How blest are those invited
to share his wedding feast:
the least become the greatest,
the greatest are the least.

He who is throned in heaven
takes up his dwelling place
among his chosen people,
who see him face to face.
No sound is heard of weeping,
for pain and sorrow cease,
and sin shall reign no longer,
but love and joy and peace.

See how a new creation
is brought at last to birth,
a new and glorious heaven,
a new and glorious earth.
Death’s power for ever broken,
its empire swept away,
the promised dawn of glory
begins its endless day

via iBreviary.